Bruce Ellem

Bruce Ellem

Artist Bio

Bruce Ellem is a practicing intellectually disabled artist who works mainly on 2 dimensional surfaces, more specifically using drawing and painting media. He has been involved in producing artworks for most of his life and has long been recognised as a talented and creative practitioner.
Born with Down Syndrome and son of renowned former Sunshine Coast artist, Gloria Blackwood Dow ne Ellem ne Crowder (1933 – 2008), Bruce is a delightful young man of 57 years who communicates his world primarily through his artwork. Unable to read and write, Bruce’s work is made up of a myriad of shapes and patterns interpreting life as he perceives it and each drawing is meticulously designed and coloured using pencils or artist quality fibre tip pens.
The process of completing each drawing involves a conscientious, almost ritualistic approach, with colours used in order of their lay out. Treatment of each line or space is completed with a changing of pen, until the surface is finally filled with a feast of colour, line and shape. The vibrant colours and fluid line creates a wonderful sense of movement and design in each piece.
Bruce has won a number of awards and exhibited in countless joint and solo exhibitions  with both family and a variety of community art groups over the years across South East Queensland, and continues to publicly demonstrate his work at every opportunity. He particularly enjoys attending book signings for his first book ‘Fly Spirit Bird Fly’.
Very successful at competition level, judges, curators and the viewing public have singled Bruce’s work out for its artistic integrity and intuitive naive expression.
Various themes dominate Bruce’s work, including his childlike appreciation for all things prehistoric and primitive, as well as an ongoing preference throughout his compositions for indigenous inspired motifs.

To contact Bruce, please email hodgedi@hotmail.com; Mob: 0400675098