Past Residents Juliet Ellis
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self portrait
Juliet Ellis is a UK/USA based artist, film maker, and performer born in Sheffield, UK. Her work is shown nationally and internationally. Her artistic vision is stimulated by a creative and spiritual need to discover new aesthetic approaches, expand her own artistic vocabulary and explore the boundaries of what it is to make work. This is explored across live, film, and installation work in which she performs.
Ellis is a recipient of awards from BFI, Arts Council, and Live Art Development Agency. Her first long form artist film Ruby won best drama at Berlin Independent Film Festival.
Her HIAP residency is a continued exploration of her art practices as a spiritual journey.
My investigation is the emptiness of the self. What is self? Who do we think we are? What is the basis of self? Are any individual parts of the body the body? Are the hands the body? Is a leg the body? Is the foot the body and so forth. Instead of just saying body as ordinary people do we want to know what the word really refers to. We want to mentally separate the body from all that is not body, so that we can say ‘this is what a body really is.’ We want to find the body but in truth there is no body, we can find nothing. When examined in this way, who is living, and who is it who will die? What is the future and what is past? Who are our friends and who are our relatives? Who is creating?