Elizabeth Ennis

Thoughts on the “Doll Series” of Paintings

Dolls became my subject during the Covid Quarantine, when live models were unavailable and drawing groups were cancelled. I found myself able to express some of the isolation, sadness, and helplessness we found ourselves in at that time through painting the dolls I had collected, which I had found discarded on the streets in my neighborhood.

In positioning the dolls I’m searching for an intuitive expression of an inner state, one which I can hold on to during the entire painting process, from first sketch to the finished piece. Often what I thought would be a strong image does not sustain the working through process. This piece then becomes the basis for one of my abstracted paintings.

I continue to find the dolls, as subject, a fruitful vehicle for my experiments with paint. In the effort to tease out emotional content from my subject, the paintings often take me on a stylistic journey towards expressionism and abstraction, which is then followed by a return to realistic figuration. Sometimes this can happen in one painting. Whatever the process has been, my hope is that the finished painting is able to convey an elusive feeling sense in a convincing visual gestalt.