E L Chisolm

Birmingham, AL native, and Atlanta, GA-based visual artist E L Chisolm uses portraiture with mixed media elements to illustrate the beauty that blooms from adversity at varying life stages, emphasizing Black communities’ struggles and desires. Throughout her work, Chisolm explores the overlapping facets of identity by deconstructing notions of beauty and its relationship to the natural world. Chisolm’s thoughtful approach to painting involves a meditative offering that she seeks to connect future generations to understand themselves and their environment better. The artist’s experiences growing up in the Deep American South, navigating poverty and racism in visceral and memorable ways, have shaped her understanding of memory and how identity markers can preserve, heal, and empower.

Chisolm began her artistic exploration by asking, ‘Who do we celebrate, how, and why?’ She’s transformed these inquiries into portraiture, focusing on individuals she has encountered on her journey of becoming, highlighting those who have been historically marginalized and overlooked. The artist’s ability to illuminate the personalities of her subjects reflects her studies of her primary influences, Thornton Dial and Kerry James Marshall. Dial and Marshall’s respective methods of capturing individuals with colorful depth and the complexities of repurposed, textured materials inform how Chisolm approaches her paintings, several of which feature different flowers surrounding the subject. The blooming lilies in “Restoration” (2023) and the orchids that vertically demarcate the surface in “Refinement” (2023) are examples of this motif. The artist’s methods have developed as she navigates the symbolic meanings of each flower used in her smaller works and murals alike, reflecting a personal connection she shares with her subjects of desiring to transition into a better, more easeful life.

The artist is explorative in her materials of choice, selecting acrylic paint, decorative paper, tissue paper, and other textural elements. However, Chisolm creates most of her mixed media works on wood because of her reverence for its ability to hold up the heaviness of history. She extends her investment in meaningful source material by using twine to depict the texture and versatility of Black hair and as a symbol of overcoming the adversity of slavery and bondage of the Deep South. “Power” (2023) is one instance of this, where the locked hair of two subjects—or one subject depicted twice, viewer’s choice—forms a halo indicating divinity and strength.

Her use of tissue paper is thoughtfully laid to represent the imperfections that exist in the beauty that is birthed from adversity and decorative paper to communicate regality, adornment & wealth. Chisolm hopes to debunk the myth of Blacks being a monolith and their destiny of struggle through the use of raw materials transformed into dynamic mixed media portraits. With her work, she strives to inspire and enhance the Black American experience by emphasizing beauty and power, reminding the viewers that everything they need is inside of them.