The Attic Gallery 1101 Washington Street Vicksburg, MS 39183 Phone: 601 638 9221 FAX: 601 638 9221 |
The Attic Gallery 1101 Washington Street Vicksburg, MS 39183 Phone: 601 638 9221 FAX: 601 638 9221 |
Landscape by Ellen Langford of Jackson, Mississippi Image size: 3" x 4" $80 |
Landscape 2 by Ellen Langford of Jackson, Mississippi Image size: 2 1/4" x 4 1/4" $80 |
Breakfast on the Porch - Ellen Langford. |
Ellen Rosewell Langford Education: University of Mississippi Medical Center: Paramedic Certificate 1998-1999 La Escuela Sevilla, la Antigua Guatemala, 1996 San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA, 1994-1995 Colby College, Waterville, ME, 1990, BA, Religion Studio Art Centers International, Florence, Italy, spring, 1990 Corcoran School of Art, Washington, DC, summer 1989 University of Southern Maine, Stone Coast Writers' Workshop, August 1989 University of Mississippi, Oxford, MS, 1987-1988, studied painting under Jere Allen Statement: I have waited tables, delivered bread, taught school, and now I work as paramedic in Central Mississippi. Through it all I have continued to paint, to try to say something with paint, with color, line and (im)balance. Despite, or perhaps because of, my formal yet patch-work training as an artist, I tend toward a simplistic representational style of painting through which I find a vision for allegory. Even for those paintings from life, I tend to choose images and locations with intention, to tell a deeper story of life. Born in the late 1960's, it was during Watergate and just following a crucial and tense period in the south that I became conscious of the world. The tension and difficulties remained, but no one I knew was talking about it. There was an effort to leave the "Old South" behind and join some idea of a world free of hatred and ignorance. But what about that world being left behind? The small rural communities, black and white? So much of it is crucial to who we are as a state. The chickens, the cows, the horses, the small out-buildings in fields, and us, the awkward humans, God's children. So what are these paintings about? They are my voice of observation - of a beautiful land of people trying their best, living day to day to deal with the realities of a past not acknowledged, but brewing beneath the surface. Beneath the apparent tranquility of chickens in yards, small rural churches, the thick light-filled pine and deciduous woods, or a simple beauty shop appointment, lies the infinitely intricate reality(ies) of this southern world I see, the Mississippi I experience. In my limited way, I have come back home, from my running-away life, to learn this lesson and re-construct, at least for myself, my history, my story of this place. Through the play of color and paint and line, and of course (im)balance, I offer up these images. |
