ELLEN CORNETT

About the Artist

I always made art. I grew up in Montgomery County and graduated from Albert Einstein High School, initially choosing Political Science as a college major, but it didn't take long for me to come back to a study of art, with a focus on printmaking. I earned a BA in Studio Art from University of Maryland in College Park. I worked as a graphic designer and illustrator for more than 25 years, producing advertising material, fine art catalogues, product packaging, and corporate identity packages for clients across the country. I started drawing and painting seriously in 2000, and in 2002 I began teaching drawing and painting at the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop in Washington, DC. Inspired by a workshop I took with Wolf Kahn and viewing an exhibit by Paula Rego, I decided to focus on creating a new body of work and was invited to present my first solo show in 2008. I won the inaugural Brentwood Arts Exchange Project America’s Next Top Master Artist in 2014, which included three rounds of elimination by a panel of judges as well as popular vote. Since 2017 I have been a full-time working artist, presenting work in numerous exhibits both regionally and nationally. In 2019, the Hirshhorn Museum invited me to participate in the interactive exhibition Rirkrit Tiravanija: (who’s afraid of red, yellow, and green) where I, along with 14 other artists, drew on the walls of the museum to create murals depicting protest, rebellion, and repression. I have a studio at Portico Gallery and Studios in Brentwood, MD.

Artist's Statement

In detailed drawings, I create layered, ambiguous narratives. Through my fascination with transformation, artifice, and disguise—often themes or vignettes plucked from folk tales and stories—I build unsettling scenes that gain energy from unresolved endings. In uncanny depictions of humans and animals, absurd possibilities lurk behind everyday moments. People and animals wear masks, discover supernatural powers, and interact in ways that may delight viewers or upend expectations. Carbon pencil, charcoal and most recently ink and colored pencil allow me to create work that is clearly hand-drawn, but realistically disorienting.