Eleanor Aldrich Paintings

CLAIRE AT THE PIANO is an oil on canvas painting by Eleanor Aldrich created in 2022. This piece utilizes a thick caulk on top of the canvas as an underlayment, adding a linear texture. The subject of the painting is a young girl sitting by the piano...

INCLINED READER is an oil and canvas painting by Eleanor Aldrich created in 2022. This piece utilizes a thick caulk on top of the canvas as an underlayment, adding a wavy, structural texture to the painting. In the center, we see a young girl reading. She’s laying on a bed, inclined slightly, with her head and gaze turned towards the viewer. Her legs, along with the colors of the background and the bedding, warp into rays emanating to the edges of the canvas. The painting resembles a nostalgic, family-archive type photograph, processed through a simple photobooth filter. INCLINED READER was featured as part of a two-person exhibition with Pamela Jorden...

PROM HAIR is an oil on canvas painting created by Eleanor Aldrich in 2022. This piece utilizes a thick caulk on top of the canvas as an underlayment. The texture gives the canvas an over exaggerated "tooth" that adds a sculptural quality to the painting. The scene painted is taken from a magazine in the 90s where someone is preparing a girl's hair from prom night. This piece has a nostalgic quality that is echoed by the rays of light acting as somewhat of a time-warp. PROM HAIR was featured as part of a two person exhibition with Pamela Jorden...

COMBING (w/ RAYS) is an oil on canvas painting by Eleanor Aldrich created in 2021. In this piece we see a scene of a girl having her hair combed by her mother. The thick texture of the imagery is created utilizing a device made by the artist in which the paint is literally combed through the forms to give the contour lines and illusion of space. Aldrich is utilizing a palette that has more neutral tones in the center of the canvas while bold rays of color expand from the center and outwards towards the edge of the piece. COMBING (w/ RAYS) was featured as part of a two person exhibition with Pamela...

IRONING (w/ RAYS) is an oil on canvas painting by Eleanor Aldrich created in 2021. In this piece, we see a woman ironing a white cloth. Only the torso part and the arms are discernible, with the focus on the woman’s outfit. In the background, behind the figure, we can see a spray bottle...

NIGHT TABLE is an oil on canvas painting by Eleanor Aldrich created in 2022. This piece utilizes a thick caulk on top of the canvas as an underlayment, creating a pattern of thick, c...

THE ROSE DRAPE is an oil on canvas painting by Eleanor Aldrich created in 2022. This piece utilizes a thick caulk on top of the canvas as an underlayment, creating a grid texture. Th...

KITCHEN SINK (w/ RAYS) is a large scale oil on canvas painting created in 2022 by Eleanor Aldrich. This piece is created using more abstract qualities than her previous work. Utilizing a filter from Apple's Photo Booth, she has created a composition that centers around a subject working at a kitchen sink. Outwardly projecting from this image (or closing in on) are rays of color and light. The expanding and contracting effect is meant to symbolize the quick passage of time. KITCHEN SINK (w/ RAYS) was part of a two person exhibition with Pamela Jorden...

I often base my work on the covers of Nancy Drew books. She is illustrated as a doubly conscious figure: partially mugging for the viewer, and partially inv...

"Reader in a Lawn Chair" is part of the latest on-going series from Eleanor Aldrich. These "behind the lawn chair" vantage points provide Aldrich with the perfect subject matter to convey her mixed media approach. More info below: Eleanor Aldrich was born in Springerville, Arizona. A participant at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine, she also holds an MFA in Painting & Drawing from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where she currently lives. She earned her BFA in Painting & Drawing through the Academie Minerva (Groningen, the Netherlands) and Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff. She was a participant in the Drawing Center’s first Open Sessions. Eleanor has had solo shows in Boston, Nashville, Knoxville, Flagstaff, AZ, and at the University of Alabama. Her work has been shown at Saltworks Gallery (Atlanta, GA), the Drawing Center (New York, NY), Grin (Providence, RI) and Ortega y Gasset (New York, NY). Her work was chosen for 1708 Gallery’s ‘FEED 2013’ (Richmond, VA). She has been awarded an Endowment for the Arts through the Whiteman Foundation, and the Herman E. Spivey Fellowship. Her work has been included in New American Paintings and on Artforum. Aldrich's work is textural and alchemical; she matches materials – often industrial sealants – and techniques to the subject matter they look like, thereby approaching a likeness without realistic rendering. She attributes her appreciation of mystery and the possibility of transformation in her work to her Catholic upbringing, in which materials were transformed and images held power over life. Her work intersects modernist painting, her own experiences, and the physicality of the body. Sometimes her work is about the application – paint is combed, piped, sprinkled and sprayed, reflecting traditional feminine work and crafts. Often the subject matter acts as a metaphor. The lines of a lawn chair seat serves as a veiled reference to the grid, and its breakdown – presumably by human weight – to an imagined encounter with the human body. *Make sure to use the "view in a room...

A feminine figure occupies the majority of the right side of this canvas, and though we can't see her face, we know that she is looking at the wall beside her. The wall is disheveled, seemingly covered with graffiti and a broken mirror hangs loosely at a precarious angle. -- Building on her previous show, Main Squeeze, which featured bodies pressing through the grid of lawn chairs, in “That Feeling When,” Aldrich expands the excess of materials to large figure paintings and small, overfilled sculptures. Aldrich uses thick materials that protrude from the surface, reminding the viewer that the paintings are not only physical objects in themselves, but also create the illusion of the picture. The work employs a risky excess of material that borders on uncontrollable; becoming metaphoric for barely controlled femininity, the attraction and repulsion of materialism, and the body pressing against constraints. The figures in the paintings are seen from behind or have turned away. The viewer is put in a place of questioning whether they are a voyeur or a co-viewer with the figure of something deeper in the picture plane. The full body paintings of young women based on Nancy Drew...

"Lawn Chair with White T-shirt" is part of the latest on-going series from Eleanor Aldrich. These "behind the lawn chair" vantage points provide Aldrich with the perfect subject matt...

Excerpt from review by art critic Joe Nolan: 'On the Boat' is the best work in the show, and it’s among the best paintings Aldrich has produced. The portrait depicts a woman sailing...

"In these works, Aldrich paints on surfaces that have been covered in uniform vertical strips of caulk. The textures don’t play into the subjects of these paintings so much as create a consistent 3D pattern across the whole surface of a wood panel covered with canvas. Two of the most interesting works in this style give us graphic renderings of domestic interiors laid out in blocks of color and elemental shapes. 'Kitchen Sink' and 'Ironing' depict counters, faucets and ironing boards through a distorted perspective that’s unnervingly deep and narrow, vertiginous and claustrophobic. The caulk brings lots of texture to these works, and Aldrich’s paint appears to be applied in chromatic washes of yellow, pink and blue that seem serene given their off-kilter surroundings. In fact, Aldrich uses the repeating vertical textures to create vividly colored lenticular illusions in these works, which only reveal themselves as viewers move past the paintings. In addition to their formal qualities and their narrative content, Aldrich’s works also comment on traditional gender roles in Western society. Her narrative portraits are mostly inspired by the covers of Nancy Drew novels. Drew, the “girl detective” who first appeared in print as a female counterpart to the Hardy Boys...

Excerpt from a review by art critic Joe Nolan: "In these works, Aldrich paints on surfaces that have been covered in uniform vertical strips of caulk. The textures don’t play into the subjects of these paintings so much as create a consistent 3D pattern across the whole surface of a wood panel covered with canvas. Two of the most interesting works in this style give us graphic renderings of domestic interiors laid out in blocks of color and elemental shapes. 'Kitchen Sink' and 'Ironing' depict counters, faucets and ironing boards through a distorted perspective that’s unnervingly deep and narrow, vertiginous and claustrophobic. The caulk brings lots of texture to these works, and Aldrich’s paint appears to be applied in chromatic washes of yellow, pink and blue that seem serene given their off-kilter surroundings. In fact, Aldrich uses the repeating vertical textures to create vividly colored lenticular illusions in these works, which only reveal themselves as viewers move past the paintings. In addition to their formal qualities and their narrative content, Aldrich’s works also comment on traditional gender roles in Western society. Her narrative portraits are mostly inspired by the covers of Nancy Drew novels. Drew, the “girl detective” who first appeared in print as a female counterpart to the Hardy Boys...

FAT BACK is part of the latest on-going series from Eleanor Aldrich. These "behind the lawn chair" vantage points provide Aldrich with the perfect subject matter to convey her mixed media approach. More info below: Eleanor Aldrich was born in Springerville, Arizona. A participant at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine, she also holds an MFA in Painting & Drawing from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where she currently lives. She earned her BFA in Painting & Drawing through the Academie Minerva (Groningen, the Netherlands) and Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff. She was a participant in the Drawing Center’s first Open Sessions. Eleanor has had solo shows in Boston, Nashville, Knoxville, Flagstaff, AZ, and at the University of Alabama. Her work has been shown at Saltworks Gallery (Atlanta, GA), the Drawing Center (New York, NY), Grin (Providence, RI) and Ortega y Gasset (New York, NY). Her work was chosen for 1708 Gallery’s ‘FEED 2013’ (Richmond, VA). She has been awarded an Endowment for the Arts through the Whiteman Foundation, and the Herman E. Spivey Fellowship. Her work has been included in New American Paintings and on Artforum. Aldrich's work is textural and alchemical; she matches materials – often industrial sealants – and techniques to the subject matter they look like, thereby approaching a likeness without realistic rendering. She attributes her appreciation of mystery and the possibility of transformation in her work to her Catholic upbringing, in which materials were transformed and images held power over life. Her work intersects modernist painting, her own experiences, and the physicality of the body. Sometimes her work is about the application – paint is combed, piped, sprinkled and sprayed, reflecting traditional feminine work and crafts. Often the subject matter acts as a metaphor. The lines of a lawn chair seat serves as a veiled reference to the grid, and its breakdown – presumably by human weight – to an imagined encounter with the human body. *Make sure to use the "view in a room...

In the series of paintings titled “That Feeling When,” Aldrich expands the excess of materials to large figure paintings and small, overfilled sculptures. Aldrich uses thick materials that protrude from the surface, reminding the viewer that the paintings are not only physical objects in themselves, but also create the illusion of the picture. The work employs a risky excess of material that borders on uncontrollable; becoming metaphoric for barely controlled femininity, the attraction and repulsion of materialism, and the body pressing against constraints. The figures in the paintings are seen from behind or have turned away. The viewer is put in a place of questioning whether they are a voyeur or a co-viewer with the figure of something deeper in the picture plane. The full body paintings of young women based on Nancy Drew...

A woman reclines in a disheveled bedroom, the folds in her sweatshirt are delicately rendered by the texture of the paint. She stares at the window, where a black cat stands on the sill, looking back at her. The open window reveals a hint of a snowy cityscape. --- Building on her previous show, Main Squeeze, which featured bodies pressing through the grid of lawn chairs, in “That Feeling When,” Aldrich expands the excess of materials to large figure paintings and small, overfilled sculptures. Aldrich uses thick materials that protrude from the surface, reminding the viewer that the paintings are not only physical objects in themselves, but also create the illusion of the picture. The work employs a risky excess of material that borders on uncontrollable; becoming metaphoric for barely controlled femininity, the attraction and repulsion of materialism, and the body pressing against constraints. The figures in the paintings are seen from behind or have turned away. The viewer is put in a place of questioning whether they are a voyeur or a co-viewer with the figure of something deeper in the picture plane. The full body paintings of young women based on Nancy Drew...

In the series of paintings titled “That Feeling When,” Aldrich expands the excess of materials to large figure paintings and small, overfilled sculptures. Aldrich uses thick materials that protrude from the surface, reminding the viewer that the paintings are not only physical objects in themselves, but also create the illusion of the picture. The work employs a risky excess of material that borders on uncontrollable; becoming metaphoric for barely controlled femininity, the attraction and repulsion of materialism, and the body pressing against constraints. The figures in the paintings are seen from behind or have turned away. The viewer is put in a place of questioning whether they are a voyeur or a co-viewer with the figure of something deeper in the picture plane. The full body paintings of young women based on Nancy Drew...

A cello is held up between the legs of its accompanying musician in a snowy landscape. Snow has collected on the protruding bits of Cello and on the tops of the musician's knees. Though we can't see the face of the musician, we see their bare arms, folding upwards, as if they have buried their face in their hands. -- Building on her previous show, Main Squeeze, which featured bodies pressing through the grid of lawn chairs, in “That Feeling When,” Aldrich expands the excess of materials to large figure paintings...

A figure reclines in a red and yellow-strapped lawn chair. The figure sitting in the chair is activated by Aldrich’s transformation of paint and resin into oozing swaths of skin between the lawn chair straps. The chair, recalling the grid, works as a pattern trying to hold and contain the body resting inside it. -- Building on her previous show, Main Squeeze, which featured bodies pressing through the grid of lawn chairs, in “That Feeling When,” Aldrich expands the excess of materials to large figure paintings and small, overfilled sculptures. Aldrich uses thick materials that protrude from the surface, reminding the viewer that the paintings are not only physical objects in themselves, but also create the illusion of the picture. The work employs a risky excess of material that borders on uncontrollable; becoming metaphoric for barely controlled femininity, the attraction and repulsion of materialism, and the body pressing against constraints. The figures in the paintings are seen from behind or have turned away. The viewer is put in a place of questioning whether they are a voyeur or a co-viewer with the figure of something deeper in the picture plane. The full body paintings...

A person reclines in a red striped lawn chair. The subject's body presses against the back of the hair, revealing a Notre Dame Fighting Irish logo on hi...

A feminine figure reclines in a pink and blue-strapped hammock. The figure sitting in the hammock is activated by Aldrich’s transformation of paint and silicone into layered, glistening, and oozing swaths of skin. The hammock, recalling the grid, works as a pattern trying to hold and contain the body resting inside it. -- Building on her previous show, Main Squeeze, which featured bodies pressing through the grid of lawn chairs, in “That Feeling When,” Aldrich expands the excess of materials to large figure paintings and small, overfilled sculptures. Aldrich uses thick materials that protrude from the surface, reminding the viewer that the paintings are not only physical objects in themselves, but also create the illusion of the picture. The work employs a risky excess of material that borders on uncontrollable; becoming metaphoric for barely controlled femininity, the attraction and repulsion of materialism, and the body pressing against constraints. The figures in the paintings are seen from behind or have turned away. The viewer is put in a place of questioning whether they are a voyeur or a co-viewer with the figure of something deeper in the picture plane. The full body paintings of young women based on Nancy Drew...

In the series of paintings titled “That Feeling When,” Aldrich expands the excess of materials to large figure paintings and small, overfilled sculptures. Aldrich uses thick materials that protrude from the surface, reminding the viewer that the paintings are not only physical objects in themselves, but also create the illusion of the picture. The work employs a risky excess of material that borders on uncontrollable; becoming metaphoric for barely controlled femininity, the attraction and repulsion of materialism, and the body pressing against constraints. The figures in the paintings are seen from behind or have turned away. The viewer is put in a place of questioning whether they are a voyeur or a co-viewer with the figure of something deeper in the picture plane. The full body paintings of young women based on Nancy Drew...

"Nanette (Back with Fence)" is a textural, contemporary figure painting by Knoxville based artist Eleanor Aldrich. Refusing engagement, the figure is turned away from the viewer. Further distance is created by a rugged representation of a chain link fence and layers of paint, enamel, and silicone. The only clue to the figure's gender is in the title, and the collision of industrial materials with a female representation provides a poignant conflict. Flashes of found paper provide hints of a t-shirt or other type of graphic clothing...

"The Softball Player" is a prime example of how Eleanor Aldrich utilizes an impasto technique to create texture in an oil painting. Using techniques such as layering, scraping, and an additive technique with a grouting tool, Aldrich brings out common figurative subject matter that create paintings with a heartbeat. More info below: Eleanor Aldrich was born in Springerville, Arizona. A participant at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine, she also holds an MFA in Painting & Drawing from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where she currently lives. She earned her BFA in Painting & Drawing through the Academie Minerva (Groningen, the Netherlands) and Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff. She was a participant in the Drawing Center’s first Open Sessions. Eleanor has had solo shows in Boston, Nashville, Knoxville, Flagstaff, AZ, and at the University of Alabama. Her work has been shown at Saltworks Gallery (Atlanta, GA), the Drawing Center (New York, NY), Grin (Providence, RI) and Ortega y Gasset (New York, NY). Her work was chosen for 1708 Gallery’s ‘FEED 2013’ (Richmond, VA). She has been awarded an Endowment for the Arts through the Whiteman Foundation, and the Herman E. Spivey Fellowship. Her work has been included in New American Paintings and on Artforum. Aldrich's work is textural and alchemical; she matches materials – often industrial sealants – and techniques to the subject matter they look like, thereby approaching a likeness without realistic rendering. She attributes her appreciation of mystery and the possibility of transformation in her work to her Catholic upbringing, in which materials were transformed and images held power over life. Her work intersects modernist painting, her own experiences, and the physicality of the body. Sometimes her work is about the application – paint is combed, piped, sprinkled and sprayed, reflecting traditional feminine work and crafts. Often the subject matter acts as a metaphor. The lines of a lawn chair seat serves as a veiled reference to the grid, and its breakdown – presumably by human weight – to an imagined encounter with the human body. *Make sure to use the "view in a room...

In “Snake Eyes”, Eleanor Aldrich uses oil, silicone, enamel, thumbtacks, and sharpie on canvas to create a visceral exploration into a lounging back. The m...

"Girl with Seagull Tattoo" uses caulking to create the texture of lace as the prominent physicality of the clothing is juxtaposed against a background of browns and pastels. The figu...

DOUBLE PORTRAIT was created with bubble wrap as a mold for silicone. Eleanor Aldrich then takes this silicone andP paints the portrait you see here of a couple embraced for their por...

"Red Poncho" provides a mix of techniques to engage two opposite forms of texture - flat, 2-D texture and thick impasto. The background has been scraped awa...

Are those actual sunglasses in that painting? You might be asking. Good question! Keep em comin. But Nope! They are in fact painted. "Sunglasses in a Veil (After Sargent...

"The Abduction" paints a more sinister picture than what is typically seen from Eleanor Aldrich. A bullseye is placed on a child abductor as Aldrich provides her commentary on the more grim aspects of society. More info below: Eleanor Aldrich was born in Springerville, Arizona. A participant at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine, she also holds an MFA in Painting & Drawing from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where she currently lives. She earned her BFA in Painting & Drawing through the Academie Minerva (Groningen, the Netherlands) and Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff. She was a participant in the Drawing Center’s first Open Sessions. Eleanor has had solo shows in Boston, Nashville, Knoxville, Flagstaff, AZ, and at the University of Alabama. Her work has been shown at Saltworks Gallery (Atlanta, GA), the Drawing Center (New York, NY), Grin (Providence, RI) and Ortega y Gasset (New York, NY). Her work was chosen for 1708 Gallery’s ‘FEED 2013’ (Richmond, VA). She has been awarded an Endowment for the Arts through the Whiteman Foundation, and the Herman E. Spivey Fellowship. Her work has been included in New American Paintings and on Artforum. Aldrich's work is textural and alchemical; she matches materials – often industrial sealants – and techniques to the subject matter they look like, thereby approaching a likeness without realistic rendering. She attributes her appreciation of mystery and the possibility of transformation in her work to her Catholic upbringing, in which materials were transformed and images held power over life. Her work intersects modernist painting, her own experiences, and the physicality of the body. Sometimes her work is about the application – paint is combed, piped, sprinkled and sprayed, reflecting traditional feminine work and crafts. Often the subject matter acts as a metaphor. The lines of a lawn chair seat serves as a veiled reference to the grid, and its breakdown – presumably by human weight – to an imagined encounter with the human body. *Make sure to use the "view in a room...

Aldrich uses spray paint and a grouting tool to create a figure wearing a poncho. An electrifying intensity is carried throughout the painting. More info below: Eleanor Aldrich wa...

Aldrich makes use of paint straight out of the tube, a grouting tool, and combines these techniques with a rendering of a girl gazing down to the ground and a shuttlecock in the top ...

"Fat Back with Tattoos" is part of the latest on-going series from Eleanor Aldrich. These "behind the lawn chair" vantage points provide Aldrich with the perfect subject matter to convey her mixed media approach. More info below: Eleanor Aldrich was born in Springerville, Arizona. A participant at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine, she also holds an MFA in Painting & Drawing from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where she currently lives. She earned her BFA in Painting & Drawing through the Academie Minerva (Groningen, the Netherlands) and Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff. She was a participant in the Drawing Center’s first Open Sessions. Eleanor has had solo shows in Boston, Nashville, Knoxville, Flagstaff, AZ, and at the University of Alabama. Her work has been shown at Saltworks Gallery (Atlanta, GA), the Drawing Center (New York, NY), Grin (Providence, RI) and Ortega y Gasset (New York, NY). Her work was chosen for 1708 Gallery’s ‘FEED 2013’ (Richmond, VA). She has been awarded an Endowment for the Arts through the Whiteman Foundation, and the Herman E. Spivey Fellowship. Her work has been included in New American Paintings and on Artforum. Aldrich's work is textural and alchemical; she matches materials – often industrial sealants – and techniques to the subject matter they look like, thereby approaching a likeness without realistic rendering. She attributes her appreciation of mystery and the possibility of transformation in her work to her Catholic upbringing, in which materials were transformed and images held power over life. Her work intersects modernist painting, her own experiences, and the physicality of the body. Sometimes her work is about the application – paint is combed, piped, sprinkled and sprayed, reflecting traditional feminine work and crafts. Often the subject matter acts as a metaphor. The lines of a lawn chair seat serves as a veiled reference to the grid, and its breakdown – presumably by human weight – to an imagined encounter with the human body. *Make sure to use the "view in a room...