Category: Artist Review

Blade (2025) uses contrast as a form of confrontation. The measuring tape which is usually an object of supposed neutrality has been turned into a tight choking collar. (in the first photograph seen in the publication and the web exhibition) The measuring tape sits around the neck and constricts, binds and judges. By wrapping the…

Window #2 (2023) brings us to what looks like a modern setting – a laptop, a bottle of wine and a half-full glass on the windowsill. These are items of possibly indicating or symbolistic of remote work or solitude. Possibly referencing the long hours of being indoors during the lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic. However,…

City of Angels (2025) showcases Los Angeles as sprawling with the freeway cutting through the composition like a stream. Every part of the city, each car, each building and area has its dreams and stories. The city has not been simplified into just buildings and vehicles- the angle brings us level with the city- making…

Elena Gorn was interviewed for the fourth (and final) edition of the Contrast publication. You can find the online exhibition version of the publication here. Can you take us through your creative process — from the start to finished piece? My creative process begins with an internal image. These images stay with me constantly — not…

Revelations 2 (2022) instantaneously contrasts our eyes—there is a strong red—aggressive and loud against the figure’s blue face. Thus, it seems as though it is an almost physical encounter between the two opposite primary colours: red and blue. They continuously clash and bleed into one another, giving a sharp jolt to the work. The piece…

Light in the Blue Hour (2024) is a spectacular photograph of the Brooklyn Bridge at night. The atmosphere within the photograph is strong while also showing restraint – the stone towers of the bridge are positioned within the photograph to look as though they are towering and standing and imposing over city and bridge. The…

The King Beneath the Surface (2018) presents a tiger moving through the water in a quite and solitary setting. The painting has mastered the scene extremely well and thus allows us to observe the tiger at ease and relaxed. Below the tiger is its own reflection in the water which, despite being distorted by the…

The Listener (2025) brings us directly towards a silhouette of a face which has been cleanly carved from the left side of the composition. The silhouette does not have any individuality as it has been stripped of any emotion, expression or appearance and does not speak. It listens which turns the silence of the silhouette…

Love in Idleness (2025) reclaims textiles and is a reclamation of domestic textile work. Violet has challenged the romanticised notion of ‘women’s work’ by confronting it, the symbolism in the work and the defiance of it. From the first look at the work- we are drawn towards the eye in the centre which has replaced…

Lost in Transmission (2023) has successfully manipulated a winter landscape into a field which is psychologically charged and espousing a perception of friction. It has been fractured through repetition- its orientation flipped and through chromatic aberration. You simply cannot view this image passively and must become active to understand and explore the work. The symmetry…