ilis'ea MADSEN
about
As a child, I would sit and draw ocean sunsets repeatedly with pastels and crayons. I was utterly captivated by the profound emotions that sunset colors create deep within the unexpressed parts of the soul. At that age, there were no words to understand the feeling—there was only color.
When I later learned to draw the human form, I became fascinated by gesture drawings and the way the body contorts and moves, particularly when dancers modeled for us. Yet, after graduating with my BFA, I struggled to see how I could incorporate my love for the fluid human figure outside the traditional boundaries of line, ink, and charcoal.
Instead, I chose to work with heavy philosophical and theological themes, creating complex spiritual metaphors. Eventually, the sheer seriousness of these subjects weighed me down. I needed a creative break.
During a visualization meditation, I imagined living near the ocean and waking early to capture the sunrise. The imagery triggered a flood of memories. I remembered what I used to draw as a child, and more importantly, why. I realized that over the years, I had collected hundreds of thousands of photos of clouds, painting them over and over purely in my mind. I remembered the thrill of working with unadulterated, rich, and vibrant color. I recalled my figure painting classes, where I would deliberately substitute realistic skin tones with pure, vivid hues.
This sparked a new journey and a fresh start. I returned to my past to push myself forward, embracing a world of unneutralized color. By combining these lifelong loves, I found a liberated, living voice—one that sings to the soul and invokes its own spiritual abstraction.
While studying ocean sunsets, I discovered scenes of flowing volcanic lava. They possessed the same intense color, but with a raw, violent movement. This powerful duality of destruction and creation perfectly fulfilled my philosophical mind. As I transitioned the color studies from my sunset and lava paintings into my figures, I discovered that the dancer and the earth have far more in common than I first supposed.
Ultimately, I find the voice of my soul in the primordial depths of the ocean and the motion of the figure. My goal is to capture both that raw emotion and physical momentum, forever reflected in the color and movement of the paint.
