Miriam Ellner

Apart from a brief apprenticeship at the London studio of Frances Binnington, Miriam Ellner underwent no formal training, and mastered the practice of eglomisé entirely on her own. Since 1990, the year she started her studio practice, she has become it’s foremost practitioner, deploying its traditional techniques with an incredible variety & precision, and in a wholly unprecedented way—practically reinventing their use with each new project & challenge. 

Key to all of Ellner’s work is its depth—its opacity and transparency. She composes each pieces meticulously, proceeding in what would seem the reverse, so that the first layer applied is that closest to the observer and each successive layer — often as many as twenty made up of materials like metal leaf, mica flakes, and mother of pearl, to name but a few—appear each behind the last.

As explained in her monograph, “It’s as if what lay behind and within the glass were a whole animate and expansive world, to which we are afforded only a fleeting glimpse. Some parts of the work may be airbrushed so as to create a suggestive, atmospheric effect. Others are highly polished, so that you see yourself reflected in them. In still other areas, you can see right through the glass, so that the space behind the work effectively becomes a part of the image. Tacitly, these varying effects also conjure different associations, alternately calling to mind the veiled, smoky quality of an antique mirror and the graphic impact of a contemporary abstract painting.”

It is this depth, created with a passion and verve unique to the artist and her team, that gives these beautiful rondelles, like so much of her work, “a freshness, a quickness, a certain joie de vivre. It's as if what lay behind and within the glass were a whole animate and expansive world, to which we are afforded only a fleeting glimpse.”