It's as if she's pulling the vaunted old scenes authored by Great Men through time's vortex and revealing them to be something new – shorn of history's traps but still rooted in its essence, something that shimmers and hums. (Cate McQuaid)
Elise Ansel is a visual translator, taking paintings by the Old Masters and rendering them in a contemporary artistic language, shifting them from figuration into abstraction, transforming their meaning and message. For Ansel, the act of painting represents an alternative way of seeing, allowing her to engage in an intimate dialogue with her source and to comprehend it on a more profound level. By applying her contemporary female perspective to centuries-old male works of art, Ansel is addressing the continued gender inequality in our society. [Stacey Kors]
