Vol.70 Artists in Catskill 2 : Ellen Wong

Artists in Catskill 2 : Ellen Wong

Ellen Wong is another Catskill artist who was inspired by Thomas Cole and
is fascinated by nature. And she moved here 20 years ago. She lives in an old
greenhouse in the forest.

We know that it’s a greenhouse when we first see it from the road,
but it has been renovated into a very modern and comfortable home.
We can look out into the vast forest from inside her atelier.

Out in the garden, surrounded by forest, there are comfortable chairs
and hammocks. This would be my ideal environment for writing a book.

In Margaretville, her exhibition just opened and I went visit her there.

When I asked her when she started drawing, she said, “I was a child who did
not laugh. I just drew a picture, because I liked the texture of the paper”.

She studied art at Brooklyn College. There she received a grant from
Hudson River Artists which gave her the opportunity to study the archives
of the many famous area artists. That way she was able to learn a lot about
Thomas Cole paintings.
When I look at her work with endless roads and mountains, houses forgotten
by time, etc., I feel an air of nostalgia.

I asked Ellen about that. “I do not like realistic drawings that look like a photo,”
she said. “I draw the relationship between man and nature.
We can see rain or just afterwards, the wind and clouds…
I would like to draw the emotion that nature gives us,” Ellen explained.

Ellen often drives to the Catskill Mountains, then hikes and walks the
meadows and hills, until she finds her favorite scene. Then she photographs it.

Back in her studio, she uses the photographs to refresh the image in her mind
from that day, to finish her landscape paintings.

While I was looking at Ellen’s paintings, I remembered a long time ago
when I was a child at elementary school, I went to the riverside to sketch.
From the bank, I sketched many houses. Although there were only black
and gray colored roofs in front of me, in my picture I drew them in my
favorite color – red. In class, my teacher thought that my red roofs were
imaginative and different. I still remember that I was very glad to receive
such praise from my art teacher.

Ellen’s paintings have the atmosphere of loneliness, but they are also very warm.
From far beyond the mountain road, I feel their warmth, like a gentle mother
who will always be waiting for me. So they make me feel that I am not walking
this long road alone.

Ellen works not only in drawing and oil painting, but also does watercolors
which show even more emotion through the texture of the paper.

“The storm is over, the sky is red above the ranch…the cows graze and relax.”
I feel a sense of security from the embrace of Mother Nature when I look
at Ellen’s paintings. Even 160 years after the death of Thomas Cole,
there are still painters who love the beauty of the Catskills and create
wonderful landscape paintings. That’s great.