Elisabeth Pellathy

The Gulf of Mexico teems with snails, mollusks, fish, turtles, and myriad marine life. The ecological multiformity of these sea and sand dwellers is interwoven into the wellbeing of the location – if the smallest and most delicate of creatures are thriving, then the waterways are healthy. If not, these smaller species are one of the first indicators of disruption to the area. 

The interwoven flora and fauna of this area is the starting point, the intersection between the work and the ideal, revealing spaces contemplating the enormity and magnification of our contemporary world. 

Whelk Shells celebrates the sea, waves, movement, tide, sand, and the small creatures: snails, mollusks, and birds. This work celebrates the biodiversity of the ocean, an accurate anatomical model, and uses contemporary tools to extol the beauty of the sea. 

Elisabeth Pellathy is a Hungarian-American artist who works in a variety of mediums, responding to location, history, and social context. She sees physical and digital manipulation of material as parallel processes. An open dialogue between these realms provides a generative space for her exploration of materiality and process. Tactile and digital, act as metaphors for the complexity of space in-between, and the slippage of the moment. 

Often, ecological concerns or more specifically, issues of disappearance, are themes in her work. Urgency in issues of language, fragility, loss, (in)visibility, tactility, and magnification emerge. While Pellathy’s working methodology is at times divergent it reflects contemporary art in global times, where accessibility of information leads to variant paths, weaving, intersecting, or perhaps never meeting, yet offering a chance of discovery.