Paintings that hold memory, silence, and light.
Elena Maris is a contemporary painter creating atmospheric works rooted in landscape, interior stillness, and emotional texture. Her practice moves between oil, charcoal, and layered mixed media on canvas and paper.
After the Rain
New work exploring tonal restraint, layered surfaces, and the sensation of weather passing through memory.
Recent paintings and studies from the studio
A quieter, more distilled selection of works centered on atmosphere, surface, and the subtle architecture of memory.
Field Notes
2023Paper Weather I
2024Distance Study
2022Interior Light
2023Holding Blue
2024A practice shaped by observation, erosion, and atmosphere
Based between the coast and the city, Elena Maris develops paintings that sit between abstraction and landscape. Her work begins with field sketches, fragments of writing, and collected color notes, then evolves in the studio through repeated layering and removal. The resulting surfaces carry traces of place while remaining open, quiet, and unresolved in compelling ways.
Her paintings are held in private collections and have been exhibited in independent project spaces, regional galleries, and curated group exhibitions focused on contemporary material practice.
Mediums
Oil, acrylic, charcoal, chalk, cold wax, and mixed media on linen, canvas, and paper.
Available For
Original works, commissions, exhibition opportunities, studio visits, and editorial collaborations.
Exhibitions, recognition, and selected press
A concise record of recent presentations and mentions that mark the development of the studio practice.
Solo presentation, Tidal Rooms, Brighton
A new body of atmospheric canvases exploring weather, distance, and emotional cartography.
Group exhibition, Material Silence, North Gallery
Featured alongside emerging painters working with restrained palettes and process-led abstraction.
Emerging Artist Award shortlist
Recognized for a series of mixed-media paintings developed from coastal field studies and erased drawings.
Featured in independent arts journals and regional culture publications
Coverage has focused on process, material sensibility, and the artist’s use of memory as a compositional structure.
“I paint to stay with uncertainty long enough for an image to become felt before it becomes known.”
My paintings begin with an interest in residue: what remains after a place has been left, after a season has shifted, after an emotion has quieted into atmosphere. I build surfaces slowly, letting color settle and recede. Marks are added, buried, softened, and sometimes removed altogether.
Rather than describe a specific landscape or room, the work seeks a threshold between recognition and ambiguity. I want the viewer to enter through mood, temperature, rhythm, and memory.
Interested in a painting, studio visit, or commission?
For availability, pricing, exhibitions, and bespoke work, reach out directly. Responses typically arrive within two business days.