Chelle Ellis, Visual Artist

I am a Memphis, Tennessee representative of NASTY WOMEN Global Art Exhibitions and Activism and in October 2022, I closed the fourth NASTY WOMEN Memphis exhibit I have produced and curated.

I grew up in the Northeast Louisiana town of Monroe where I first noticed my artistic talent in the second grade while drawing a swan for a class illustration of The Ugly Duckling. My report cards throughout grade school reflected a hidden world, where I preferred to wander, distracted from my teacher's lesson. "Doesn't pay attention" and "Daydreams" would be the constant warning from teachers to my parents.

The intervention doesn't seem to have worked, but I think I'll be okay. ;)

In the late 1980's, I relocated to North Mississippi, where I focused my creative energy into writing for The Panolian of Batesville, Mississippi, as Michelle Jones. For the next four years, I wrote a weekly humor column named, "Keeping Up With the Joneses".

The newspaper life demanded several moves throughout Mississippi, with temporary relocation to Honolulu, Hawaii, and Fredericksburg, Virginia.

In 1999, I sustained the death of my father and the end of my first marriage, which led to my reassessment of goals and return to North Mississippi. Refocussing my talent through self-study, I dove deeper into website development that I initiated during the dawning era of the dot-com boom. Using instinctual design tools, I further developed my interest in design and layout, and greater experience was gained, while working at newspapers and magazines. Simultaneously, I ran my own web design firm, which eventually commanded my full attention, when it started leading the industry in North Mississippi and Memphis, Tennessee.

Ruthless: Carried in the 2018 Memphis Protest of Brett Kavanaugh's Confirmation

During my 2007 wedding anniversary vacation in Cancun, I suddenly went into convulsions, was rushed to the intensive care unit of a Mexican hospital and diagnosed with a brain aneurysm.

My treating doctor wasn't sure if I could survive a flight back to the states, but realizing nothing could be done for me there, ordered a life flight to Miami, Florida's Jackson Memorial Hospital. After a week long stay at JMH, a team of neurologists un-diagnosed the brain aneurysm (whew!) and correctly diagnosed me with relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis.

Returning home to consider my new life in convalescence, I found my healing - once again - in art. When vision in both of my eyes was restored, I brushed my rebellion onto canvas, where it became an aesthetic I could consider. Balance and other taken-for-granted functions gradually returned and brought with them, new possibilities.

Creative therapy and continued education in media and techniques, helped form my style of intense color and repetitive, semi-abstract shape.

You may notice quite a few pieces with a little black and white dog or ginkgo leaves. That's because my Pekingese, Moosh, is my muse since I got her in 2011.. and she has a ginkgo leaf shape on her head.

I teach mixed media painting, printmaking and metalsmithing courses at at various venues. If you are interested in my art instruction services, please view my CV with contact information.

Photos and inventory of my pieces are added to this website, when I have time to produce art. If you would like to commission a piece, please email me with those details.