Elske deGroot

Elske’s work directly responds to her surrounding environment and she tends to use everyday experiences as a starting point. Often these are framed instances that would go unnoticed in their original context, snippets of time and place.

With a subtle minimalist approach, Elske creates work in which a fascination with the clarity of content and an uncompromising attitude towards conceptual art can be found.

Her journey as an artist started as a commercial photographer. When she was given the opportunity to teach very early photographic printing techniques at a college in Toronto, she came to realize that she loved the hands-on, tactical, physical experience of creating art.

This led Elske to explore how else she could incorporate her photography into tactical art pieces. Elske’s first few experiments were a flop. She tried using things like wallpaper paste, shoe glue, and multiple different types of paper. The experimentation process was a great joy though. It gave her inner child a chance to come out explore without judgment.

Elske finally settled on encaustics and photography and she has never looked back. She continues to explore new techniques within encaustics and finds contentment in the failures and successes.