Martha Ellis’s first solo exhibition, The Cut Line, transformed drawings of grasses, flowers, people and architecture into hand-cut and laser-cut forms.
Presented at Patriothall Gallery in Stockbridge in 2023, the exhibition occupied two rooms and allowed the works to cast changing shadows across the walls.
Looking closely at overlooked growth
Ellis began one major series in 2019 while walking beside the Whiteadder in the Scottish Borders.
Wild grasses silhouetted against the setting sun led her to document the same plants across spring, summer, autumn and winter.
The work Grasses: Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter used the darkened edges left by laser cutting to give warmth and definition to the forms.
Other works included The Allotment, made from laser-cut MDF, and Bexley Village, 8th January 2022, a hand-cut plywood drawing of people.
Still forms activated by shadow and movement
Ellis studied each subject first through pencil drawing.
She then cut the image from sheet material using a knife, jigsaw, plasma cutter or laser technology.
As viewers moved around the pieces, silhouettes shifted and details appeared distorted. Natural light altered the shadows through the day, adding movement to otherwise fixed forms.
The enlarged flowers in Daffodils, Grape Hyacinth, Dandelion and Primrose changed familiar garden plants through playful scale.
The Cut Line encouraged viewers to notice subjects usually passed without attention. Its method reduced objects to recognisable outlines while the gallery’s light returned complexity through shadow.
The exhibition showed drawing continuing beyond paper, becoming sculpture, negative space and a changing relationship between object and wall.