Ellen Altfest

Ellen Altfest paints parts of the male form, nude or partially covered and close-ups of objects in and from nature. These works are made during direct observation from life and require months or even years to complete. Rendered with an intensity and intimacy, Altfest's subjects are one to one in scale and painted with an accumulation of detail that is beyond what the human eye can absorb in a single glance. Both embracing and departing from the norms of figurative painting, Altfest has said that she wants ‘...to upend the traditional hierarchy of painting by making the subject secondary to the composition that would support it’.