Ellie Pritts
Digital
Ellie Pritts grew up surrounded by music. Briefly going to college to study visual arts, Pritts left in favour of teaching herself photography and digital art. Her secret garden – her refuge, independence, andfreedom – and analogue photography saved Pritts from the turmoil of life. Throughout the years, with the experience she has gained, her photographic practice has evolved into different creative spaces.
First devoted to black-and-white photography, Pritts began to experiment with colour, playing with the chemical aspects of her medium. As such, desert landscapes took a surrealist turn with her highly contrasted and bold colours. By soaking her film in different mixtures, she has been playing with unpredictability and serendipity.
Her interest in the most cutting-edge technology, resulted in Pritts using AI in her practice, creating videos, and digital illustrations. Deeply interested in photography’s materiality, the Coronavirus pandemic (2020 – 2022) pushed Pritts, during her time in quarantine, to embrace the digital world, while also keeping an element of nostalgia, by using equipment from the 1980s and 1990s. Her (new) “old school” tools enable her to revive the visual language and culture of the fin-de-siècle .
Oscillating between her taste for the texture of film and the clarity of the digital process, Pritts creates a way to share—quite literally—how she perceives the world. Having synesthesia, a condition where she experiences one sense through another, Pritts’s life and work are shaped by the colours of sounds, the sound of people, and the colour of words. Acutely aware of her environment and how she uniquely experiences it, Pritts brings to life a visuality of conscious mind expansion.
Lately, large-scale installations have enabled her to bring people into her world, offering a more immersive experience. Ellie Pritts’s work invites us to step out of our comfort zone and envelop us in an other-worldly colourful realm.
Selected Solo and Group Exhibitions
2023
Santa Monica Art Museum, California, US.
‘Ellie Pritts: In the Screen I am Everything’, Bitforms Gallery, New York, US.
‘Métamorphoses: Poème Sbjkt’, L’Avant Galerie Vossen x Librairie, Paris, France.
‘Infinite Emotions’, UBP Monaco, Monaco, France.
‘Recursive Reflections’ Subjective x Lume Studios, New York, US.
‘Algorithmic Empathy’, Expanded Art Gallery, Berlin, Germany.
‘Bad Glitches Only’, Superchief Gallery, Rome, Italy.
‘Poesía de Protesta’, TheVERSEverse, New York, US.
2022
‘Artifical Imagination’, Minnesota Street Project Artist Studios, US.
‘NFCastle’, Lobkowicz Palace Museum, Prague, Czech Republic.
‘Cosmic Shift’, Gabba Gallery, Los Angeles, US.
‘Electric Psychedelia’, Vellum LA x SuperRare, Los Angeles, US.
‘NFT Art Berlin’, Kraftwerk Berlin, Germany.
‘NFC’, House of Lubkowicz, Prague, Czech Republic.
‘Electric Psychedelia’, Vellum Gallery, Los Angeles, US.
‘Artist’s who Code’, Vellum Galle ry x Artsy, Los Angeles, US.
2021
‘Bright Moments’, Electric Psychedelia, Los Angeles, US.
2019
‘Spectral Horizons’, Substrate Gallery, Los Angeles, US.
Education
2006 – 2007
Northern Illinois University, Music Performance, General.
2002 – 2006
Walter Payton College Preparatory.
Honours and Awards
2018
Cannes Gold Lion Social and Influencer Lions, Co-Creation & User.
Content Shortlist, Mobile Lions.
Shortlist, Direct Lions.
2012
Chicago Reader Photo Issue.
Selected Press
CBS, ‘Hotels by Design: Tommie Hotel art installation’.
Wired, ‘How to Spot AI-Generated Art, According to Artists’.
Fortune, ‘How Female Artists are Navigating the NFT Space’.
Shondaland, ‘Ellie Pritts is Covering the NFT Art World with Colour’.
Artnet, ‘Science & Tech: In Pictures’.
Expanded.Art, ‘Ellie Pritts: Reinterpreting Nostalgia Psychedelia and Glitch’.
Smithsonian Magazine, ‘Art Meets Science’.
Wallpaper*, ‘Generative Art: The Creatives Powering the AI Art Boom’.
Decrypt, ‘Bright Moments DAO Brings Crypto to Life at NFT Art Berlin’.
Instagram, #HelloWorld Featuring Ellie Pritts’.
The Verge, ‘The Future of Cinema is a Punk-Ass Twitch Collective’.
Time, ’51 Instagram Photographs to Follow in the United States’.
Entertainment Weekly, ‘The Happy List: 28 Pop Culture Pleasures Worth Smiling About’.
LA Weekly, Electric Psychedelia’.
Wired, ‘The Apollo Archives Hit Flickr, Total Awesomeness Ensues’.
Boing Boing, ‘Project Loss by Ellie Pritts’.
All Ships, Interview: Ellie Pritts’
Edge of NFT, ‘Podcast Featuring Ellie Pritts at Bright Moments’.
OpenLab, ‘In Digital: Behind the Screen with Ellie Pritts’.
CBC News, Racer Trash Halloween Movie Viewing Parties Go Virtual’.
Selected
artworks
Quixodic Recursion II
Printed on sustainable fine art giclee paper, Hahnemühle Bamboo 290 76 x 76 cm, 127 x 127 cm
