Ahead of her upcoming solo exhibition ‘Tool, Symbol, Weapon …Mouth’ at Shug Gallery, we caught up with Elise Brand, an artist whose work pulls you in close, both visually and emotionally. Her paintings, often tightly cropped and drawn from personal photos, feel like fragments of memory resurfacing. There’s an intimacy in her attention to gesture, a kind of quiet honesty that reveals more than it hides.
We talked about hands as memory keepers, the vulnerability of cropping, and why painting her own ear became a way to listen inward. Elise Brand paints like she’s remembering something mid-brushstroke. Her work is intimate, not just in scale but in feeling, cropped close, pulled from old personal photos, and focused on gestures that don’t shout but say a lot. A curl of the fingers. A half-heard memory. A moment that stuck, even when she didn’t know why. We talk about why hands say more than faces, why cropping can feel like protection, and what it means to paint your own ear and call it a self-portrait.
Do you think we’ve forgotten how to really read a gesture in an age of emojis and double-taps?
Elise: That’s hard to say, it probably differs for each generation and also between cultures. I think though emojis have become a blocker for truth, or a manipulator of truth, because the gesture is subconscious and the emoji is conscious. If you study art history, you learn about how hands and gestures were used to communicate a broader story, idea or identity in a deliberate manner like how we use emojis. For example, during the Renaissance and earlier, most people were illiterate and relied completely on symbols and gestures to identify the religious stories and lessons being told. Eventually i realized that hands were more honest than faces if left un-manipulated by the artist. A small gesture can reveal (and betray) you to anyone who is paying attention. And with that your character can be revealed as clearly as an expression on a face. So I began painting hands as a form of portraiture.
Has painting made you more aware of your own body language when you’re not behind the canvas?
Elise: I think my painting is more a response than a trigger for my self-awareness. I actually think seeing a video-play back of myself and being forced to watch it for note taking was what really triggered me to observe how my own gestures were betraying me. I don’t likepresenting myself to people and thought I’d made a decision to paint other people instead. Eventually I realized I was actually painting really coy portraits of myself. Not my body necessarily, but moments I experienced and which memories I need to spend time with. So rather than painting hands in a way that communicates some story or notion to the viewer, I’m communicating to myself. I’m processing. My references are all from my own photos, and this imagery can be years old, something that I’ve kept in a saved folder for no clear reason until one day I realize I’m supposed to paint it.
Is painting a form of memory-keeping for you—or more like a way to rewire how you remember?
Elise: I think it’s the bridge between those two things. I’m basically inviting the viewer into what my mind gets caught on, and what moments turn over and over in my head, being written hard into my memory – even if it was actually a moment I wanted to forget. The memory is there and now i’m figuring out why. The extreme crop is a big part of this process. If I were to paint the ‘whole photo’ it would be the same as trying to paint a 360 view, there’s too much to focus on -too many elements for distraction.
How often do we actually listen to ourselves, and what do you hear when you do?
Elise: There’s a painting in the show called “Reshaping”. This is a self portrait via my left ear. I painted it later in the series as I became more aware of the introspection of all these works. I’m listening to myself and I’m respecting myself. There’s this really vivid memory from when I was maybe just 5; it was a big lunch with my extended family and I whispered something in my Dad’s ear, I can’t even remember what I was asking for, and he spoke it out loud and everyone laughed. I became so embarrassed—I wanted to melt into the floor. I still get this feeling when my words go public. The painting is an attempt to convince myself that my words have value and I’m worth being heard and taken seriously.
What kind of atmosphere are you building for the show—what do you want people to carry with them after they leave?
Elise: I’ve already had people comment on some works from the show and generously share their interpretations. What I’ve noticed is that the paintings are triggering something in themselves, they’re connecting their own memories and I love that. I think because the crop abstracts the subject, but reveals a truth, it allows people to attach memories they’re stuck on and return to them. I hope that’s true, i’d love if my work allowed enough space for the viewer to take whatever they need from it.
Elise’s solo exhibition opens July 12th at Shug Gallery 23–25 St Augustine’s St, Norwich NR3 3BY. Expect an intimate exploration of memory, gesture, and self-portraiture in fragments. To request the forthcoming catalogue or for more information, reach out to Shug Gallery at contact@shug-gallery.
