Elise’s Enigmatic Sculptures Are “Deliriously Disorientating”

“Her sculptures are a giddying mix of surface, mass, and volume, situated precariously on the verge of physical

impossibility”, reads a statement on the artist’s website. In an era where graphic design and digital manipulation dominate our visual worlds, one could be forgiven for assuming these works are rendered. Yet Elise’s sculptures are entirely real, it’s her engagement with, and manipulation of, various physical materials that pushes her work to the edge of realism. “She draws the viewer into a deliriously disorientating world, where intriguing sculptural shapes connect and collide,” continues the description. Bulbous forms made from plaster, fiberglass, wood, or stone resin, are affixed together to create compositions reminiscent of the machinery in Willy Wonka’s fictional factory. As the viewer’s gaze spans the works, “angle, curve, surface, and dimensionality merge to form an unlikely symmetry”.