Elliot Mason Artist Focus

Elliot calls his artwork a stylized representation of the natural world. He uses rhythmic, organic and geometric forms that are broken down into simple motifs. These can be turned into patterns, replicated and then contoured over blended gradients that represent land, waves, clouds and living beings. He creates patterns that represent the environment they portray, stretched and repeated like fractals multiplying into the distance to create perspective and depth.
What drew to painting?
It would have to be best summed up as a family connection to art. My Grandfather was a picture framer and gallery owner so there was always lots of good painting around all the family homes. I can’t say for sure but I think that being exposed to painting growing up in an environment where visual art was considered important by many family members have influenced my trajectory in life.
Take us through your process, what inspires you?
My process generally begins with an experience out in the elements of nature, usually, a place free of the effects of the human race is where I find a sense of reverence and awe that spurs my desire to make things. My paintings are normally produced in a studio environment, currently at my workplace, Zeus Gallery where I also feed off my peers, their productivity and development inspire my desire to paint and push my work in new directions.
Have you always had an interest in art?
I have always been interested in most domains that fit the description ‘art’.
My interest has as always been more forward-leaning towards painting, sculpture and music.
How has your practice changed over time?
My practice has changed over time, some changes drastic and some minute. I think the changes in my work swing with the ebb and flow of life, the past, present and future continually evolving and responding to conditions at hand.
For the past eight years or so my painting has been going through a refinement with small changes and development of a way of working, I’ve always experimented however and have many unresolved projects. I fell it important to keep testing and trialling new ideas and don’t deny myself the thrill of fresh unexplored territories, I am also friendly with the perspective that one should not throw away the baby with the bathwater.
What project are you working on now?
I have a few projects underway currently but I think one, in particular, has been more in-depth and involved than the rest. I have been producing a depiction of a historical site located in Tauranga. I had been selected as the artist because the written word of my great uncle was to be used on a public plaque and it was deemed fitting that I be the painter to produce an image to accompany the text. The image is of a Maori Pa site, a hill fort named Puketoromiro. This work has led me through a research process far deeper, longer, more culturally and geographically involved than my standard process, it carries a responsibility that I have had to work for but enjoyed.  My gallery and the exhibitions I help make with other artist’s is a constant project at this current time.
View all Elliot Mason Collaborations here