my genuine answer is that i didn’t consciously decide to or even realise circular form was recurring in my work.

the way i paint, my fierce painting process is instinctive. i don’t begin with a detailed plan or a finished image in my mind…i respond to colour, movement and whatever feels necessary in the moment.

one of the things i believe i’ve learnt from painting regularly, is that your personal style isn’t really something you choose, it’s something you gradually uncover.

i’m drawn to bold colour, texture, movement,

and, it turns out, circular form.

circles, ellipses, ovals, fragmented circles, half circles, they all appear in my work over and over again. when it was pointed out to me, it got me thinking why.

if i’m honest, it’s mostly about enjoyment. i enjoy the gesture and movement of circular form. the almost meditative, sweeping brushstrokes…not too dissimilar from the simple satisfying act of stirring a cup of tea.

if i’m being more reflective, to me, circular form can represent so much:

infinity/endlessness. beginning and end. the womb. cycles — growth, life and death, renewal. the vastness of the universe. black holes. repetition. energy shifting and transferring, never being destroyed.

i don’t consciously think about all of this when i’m painting…but it makes sense. i’m drawn to the human condition and part of being human is existentialism and cycles.

discovering my preference for circular form feeds into why i’m a strong advocate for giving ourselves creative freedom. of course, it’s the artists prerogative to choose exactly what they want to make, we’re all different.

i just feel that when we allow ourselves to create more instinctively, we reveal something about ourselves…and perhaps our work becomes more ‘true to self’ because it isn’t trying to imitate someone else’s way of seeing the world.

this is the part of making art that fascinates me most. the longer i create, the more i realise i’m not simply making paintings.

i’m learning how i see the world.

and once something changes the way you see,

you unlock a new level of being.

this is one of the greatest gifts creativity has given me…

…i hope i never forget it.

— elise

i was curious…

…i wanted to know what would happen if i took the same starting point and changed just one thing.

colour.

and, as i suspected, i found myself stepping into an entirely different emotional landscape.

where blue feels frozen and suspended, red feels hot. alive.

changing the colour altered everything.

as i was painting, my marks became more confident, my energy shifted, and the painting came together with a surprising ease.

there was something incredibly reassuring about the experience…because it reminded me that there is still so much for me to discover. each time i walk into my studio, it feels as though my work is revealing another small piece of itself, and my job is to simply pay attention.

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i’ve been thinking about where my fascination with blue and red came from.

i think…it began with the diptych.

the two blue and red figures sit side by side, crying opposing colours. when i painted them, it wasn’t on my mind to make a statement on colour or psychology. i followed instinct, trusting that the paintings knew something i didn’t yet understand.

only afterwards did i begin asking why those colours had appeared, and why they felt so important.

blue and red are a continuation of my curiosity…and i feel as though they’re extending that conversation.

blue makes me think about stillness, transition and those strange periods in life where everything feels suspended. red, on the other hand, carries heat, courage, desire and that unmistakable feeling of being fully alive.

i don’t see them as opposites.

i feel they’re somehow connected — like neighbouring emotional states that we move between throughout our lives. i’m very much interested in the relationship between them, thought i’m yet to find all the words.

one of the greatest gifts painting has given me is permission not to rush towards certainty. i think sometimes we believe we need to understand something before we can express it…

…but perhaps the opposite is true.

by expressing, releasing tension and emotion, understanding follows. i feel like this is true of my process. i create and pause. then in time, understanding follows.

red has given me confidence that there is much more to explore.

i have also recently created large red 36x48 inches, and will talk about this in the weeks to come.

you can view both paintings here befierce.club/gallery

— elise

p.s blue, red, large red, are working titles. the paintings are currently untitled.

those of you who have read the the unsettled self series will know the story of how i returned to painting…but my decision to become an artist and build a practice is a different story.

after creating chaotic night and dark mirror, once the dust had settled, i slowly began finding my feet and painting regularly.

some of these new paintings i hated and disposed of, others i didn’t quite finish. they sit abandoned in my studio.

it wasn’t until i painted tulip fever that something shifted.

in the back of my mind, i’d been toying with the idea of building an art practice for several months but, as is usually typical when we want something, i lacked the confidence that i could do it successfully.

tulip fever changed this.

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unlike the paintings before it, tulip fever came quite easily and ignited a confidence within me. the painting allowed me to imagine a future where i was capable of creating work that meant something — work that simultaneously reflected parts of me and how i see the world. work that allows other people to find themselves in it.

it also made me grapple with the idea of success and reframe what it means to build a successful career. i then got that feeling i get in my chest when something feels…right. that’s the moment i committed.

once i made that commitment, things began to change.

i created a dedicated studio space in my flat. i started documenting my thoughts on the unsettled self in a journal, which eventually became elise studio: laid bare. i began budgeting for materials and buying canvases with intention rather than on impulse.

i started blocking out studio time, sharing my work publicly and presenting myself more professionally.

most importantly, i started taking the business side of my practice seriously, and asking myself what kind of artist i wanted to become.

this story reminds me why i often speak about how action comes before identity change.

in this case, the repeated act of painting came before the conscious commitment to becoming an artist and building a practice…

…and now, i’m enjoying the ride.

— elise

p.s if you’re interested, i talked more about this in one of my YouTube videos

i’m drawn to the colour because i find blue to be cool and calming…there’s a stillness and softness to it.

however, i feel there’s a melancholic element too, with the depth of sadness seen depending on your current emotional/psychological state.

in addition, to me the painting feels suspended…as though frozen, existing in the space between one thing and another.

this feeling isn’t unfamiliar to me, i’ve felt suspended a few times throughout my life: in between jobs, relationships, and different versions of myself.

those periods tended to be uncomfortable. i found myself yearning for clarity, and wanting to know what happens next.

but these in between stages serve a purpose — they’re part of transition, and not always a sign that something is wrong.

it makes me think of ice. ice preserves, stops movement, and creates a pause.

in a way, i think the solid state of ice is somewhat similar to psychological states.

during their intensity, they feel fixed, frozen, almost as though life has pressed pause and you’ll never feel anything else again.

it’s good to remember that ice is frozen based on external conditions, which when changed, can cause the ice to melt — in the same way that when our life conditions change, our psychological states can change too.

i don’t think my small blue painting is about loneliness, in the same way the diptych is, though there is certainly an element of distance and isolation within it.

i’m still working on and developing the series, but at this moment, i feel the painting captures a frame of the psychological states we find ourselves in when in transition.

as i mentioned, transition is uncomfortable. maybe that’s why there is a thread of melancholy running through it.

yet alongside the melancholy, there’s the stillness…and also a strange sense of peace in the fact that the ‘ice’ won’t last forever.

in my own life, the conditions that have often caused the ‘ice’ to melt, have been meaningful connections.

sometimes, all it takes is for someone to reach out and remind you that transition is temporary.

i’m anticipating what else will unfold in the series, especially now that it’s larger counterpart (36x48 inches) has been painted.

you can view both paintings here befierce.club/gallery

— elise

there was something about the introspection of that piece that made me want to paint it again.

i didn’t want to recreate it exactly, but i wanted to see if i could replicate a similar emotional space…so i began painting.

as usual, i didn’t have much of a plan. i kept on painting…and then, something unusual happened.

a figure appeared, and then he started crying.

it wasn’t something i had consciously decided, it simply emerged through the process of painting.

once he was there, i knew he couldn’t exist alone, and that i wanted to create his opposite.

that was the moment the diptych idea began forming.

at first, i thought i was exploring loneliness…and perhaps i am.

but the more time i spend with these paintings, the less certain i become.

i find myself wondering whether the two figures are separate people, or different parts of the same person.

whether they represent connection, disconnection, or something else entirely.

perhaps they’re different parts of ourselves, perhaps they reflect interpersonal relationships.

i believe they’re asking questions i haven’t learnt how to articulate yet.

it’s still early days and i don’t have answers. only curiosity.

i’m excited to begin writing about this work now rather than waiting until it’s finished.

the unsettled self was written with the benefit of hindsight.

i could look back and see patterns, connect ideas together, and understand things that weren’t visible at the time.

this is different, i’m writing from inside the process in real time, sharing thoughts before i know where they’ll lead.

it’s exciting…and a little daunting to open up and let you all know what i’m thinking.

i’m keen to see how ideas will develop in coming weeks and months.

it’ll be interesting to look back and see which threads were followed, and which weren’t…to see what the paintings become, and what they reveal.

for now, i’m following the same approach i’ve always taken.

pay attention, stay curious, keep painting.

and trust that, eventually, the work will tell me what it has been trying to say all along.

— elise

but internally, the moments before painting, a pressure and need to release something begins to build.

that’s normally how i know the next painting is ready.

i call my process fierce painting.

i wanted a way to articulate the expressiveness of how i work, and came up with the phrase back in 2017, a while after i first began painting.

fierce painting is the process by which i create. it isn’t a technique but rather a way to explain how i approach creativity, and life itself.

it means allowing yourself to take up space creatively, freely and honestly.

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when i paint, i work quickly and instinctively.

i begin with colour selection first, then apply paint directly to the canvas and respond intuitively from there. the first marks are always my favourite — before self consciousness tries to creep in.

then the process begins,

more paint,
more layering,
a bit of breathing space,
more shape.

then, i step back.
assess,
adjust,
step back,

and at some point, the painting begins communicating what it needs.

i often describe this as the work ‘talking back’ to me.

i don’t mean this literally…it’s more that i’m so in tune with the flow of the process that i feel the painting starts revealing where it needs texture, colour, softness, movement.

my role is to listen closely enough not to ruin it.

that is the difficult part.

i always get a little nervous while painting…i fear that i’ll go too far and lose whatever truth briefly existed on the canvas…and sometimes that does happen, sometimes i create work i don’t connect with at all. i think every artist knows this feeling.

if i’m honest, i think this fear is intensified because i was never formally trained.

at school, i was not considered ‘good’ at art.

i still remember a moment where our teacher hung everybody’s work on the classroom wall. mine was missing. when i asked where it was, she rummaged around in a cupboard before eventually pinning it somewhere low down in a dark corner. in that moment, i remember understanding that my work probably wasn’t ‘good’.

so i dismissed the visual arts…but years later i discovered painting, quite by accident. i’ll write more about this story soon…

after stepping away from painting for 7 years, i eventually found myself returning to the canvas again almost instinctively. what surprised me most was that my fierce painting process was still within me, as if i hadn’t even paused.

i’ve written more about this period in the unsettled self, a painting series exploring creativity, identity, mental health, and returning to myself.

when i started painting, i had no real understanding of art history (i confess much hasn’t changed). i didn’t know what abstract expressionism was, all i knew is that i was less interested in reproducing the visible world, and more interested in expressing my internal world.

only afterwards, when i searched online, i found out that there were artists who approached painting instinctively too.

i don’t always know exactly what i’m going to paint when i start a fresh piece.

my inspirations exist more like parts living in my subconscious: aspects of the human condition, colour, texture, movement, nature, behaviour, memory.

i allow these things to surface naturally onto the canvas through my process. then, if i’m happy with my work, i sit with it and begin to reflect, deciding if there’s more to it (that’s how my series are formed) or if it’s a standalone piece.

in many ways, painting feels closer to visual journalling than image making…perhaps that’s why i feel comfortable writing about my work; another outlet to explore creativity, vulnerability, and process…

…and perhaps that’s why i believe creativity reconnects us to ourselves.

people often speak about creativity as though it only belongs to ‘talented’ people,

frightened of making something imperfect? frightened of being seen trying?

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discovering painting completely changed the trajectory of my life, and left me with a question i continue to ask myself,

i suspect this is a question many of us should ask ourselves more often.

i don’t mean through painting specifically, but through any form of honest creative expression.

this is ultimately what fierce painting is about,

not perfection, technical mastery or performance,

but instinct, curiosity, feeling, and expression.

i want to create work that makes people feel first and think later.

and secretly, i hope fierce painting encourages other people to create more instinctively too — to stop waiting to become ‘good enough’ before allowing themselves to begin.

because sometimes the most important thing,

is simply making that first mark.

— elise

most of my paintings don’t begin with a clear idea, they begin with feelings and urgency.

i call my process ‘fierce painting’. there’s a kind of controlled chaos to it.

i don’t plan much. i don’t sketch much.

i choose colours based on my mood and start moving fast, instinctively. to me, it feels less like creating and more like releasing something within.

some of my pieces stay like that, products of emotive instinct.

others become part of a series; that’s when i step away, look at what’s emerged, and begin to shape them more intentionally.

i think the reason creating matters to me is that it’s one of the only times i feel completely free,

and the more I allow this freedom, (in my work, in my body, in my life) the more i feel like i’m healing, learning, growing and becoming whole.

— elise

i’ve learnt not to analyse it too early. if i do, it disappears and then i’ve lost it. so instead, i get straight to it.

colour is always the first decision — i pick colours based on how i’m feeling.

oftentimes, i choose my favourites. they tend to create darker, moodier paintings with bold highlights.

sometimes, i choose colours i wouldn’t usually be drawn to, with combinations that feel slightly off…

…and occasionally, i’ll ask someone to choose a colour at random.

from there, i move quickly — i apply the paint directly to canvas and get to work with my brush.

texture is usually next on my mind. i enjoy the resistance texture brings in my work, creating areas with visual contrast.

and of course shape. at the moment, i’m drawn to sweeping circular shapes and movement.

during this beginning phase of my fierce painting process, i’m not thinking much at all, rather responding to my internal world.

and then there’s always a point where it shifts.

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