Ellen Picken: 13 Senses

FIRST FRIDAY RECEPTION Friday, December 5th, 5-7pm

Spokane artist Ellen Picken engages multiple senses through her paintings and interactive sculptures, exploring complex themes of existence, ritual, and nature. Meaning emerges not only from the symbolic colors and shapes in her paintings but also from the carefully chosen materials she uses to create her handmade paints. Personally meaningful substances collected from significant places—such as willow ash, sandstone, eggshell, copper, salt, brick, pinesap, beeswax, rust, alluvial sand, deer bone, and iron oxide—are ground up and used to make her colors, deepening the experience of the works.

The seasons are the Ritual. Our rituals uphold the original. They bring us into rhythm with the First and Ongoing Dance.

These are the four trees that guided my life. The Maple, Ponderosa, Willow, and Mulberry of Antilon Creek. They taught and protected my cousins and siblings; made work and provided rest for my parents; gave, whether anyone was aware of their offerings or not. Their gifts were too obvious for me to ignore.

There are two approaches to the paintings: the symbolic or the material. Symbolically they represent different aspects of a whole personality (vulnerability/protectiveness, intro/extraversion etc.) Materially, like the living trees, the paintings are made of the same elements of the Earth but take different forms. The unique forms reveal understandable aspects of the overwhelming whole. In a graspable way, they show us how to be in accordance with the cycles of life. That is their gift.

You have to be able to trust your inner voice to hear theirs. The Questioning Rounds sculpture in the center of the room is a tool for you to use to communicate with the paintings and yourself. Each tree will answer your question according to its(your) nature. Spin the disks. Wherever they stop in front of you, ask a painting/tree the question with your thinking, feeling, or intuitive center in your head, heart, or diaphragm. See how the answer changes according to who you ask, and from where your question originates within your physical/psychical Self.

These paintings incorporate or are entirely created with handmade paint. I collect minerals, bones, ash, and rust from meaningful locations; my great-grandmother’s former home, the forests our community helped to protect, the river that is our water-source, our city in disrepair. I transform the objects into pigment by grinding, drying, dissolving, or oxidizing then stir in oil, local beeswax and pine sap.

Ellen Picken Bio:

“Picken’s simultaneously organic and geometric abstractions are part of a long tradition of universalist, spiritual abstraction. Her works invite viewers to investigate ways of knowing and being, celestial and earthly, physical, and intangible.” – Spokane Arts

Ellen Picken (b. 1980) explores complex themes of existence, ritual, and nature, reflecting her deep engagement with the materials and landscapes that shape her practice. Best known for her monumental public artworks, Picken has created large-scale murals across the United States for prominent organizations like Adobe, Google, and NYC Department of Transportation. She has exhibited regionally and internationally at venues including Samsøn (New York, NY), Gage Academy (Seattle, WA), GlogauAIR (Berlin, GER), Lowell Ryan Projects (Los Angeles, CA), and Entropy Gallery (Spokane, WA). Picken holds a BFA in Printmaking and a BA in Visual Communication Design from Eastern Washington University. She resides in Spokane, Washington.