What themes or concepts do you explore in your artwork for this show?

For this show I'm exploring this idea of the ecopoetic. I want to make a case that autism is a language: After going mute during absolute autistic burnout in 2017/18, nature provided a balm, communing with trees and sky is easy. Autistic brains think easily in the ecopoetic, communicating what we notice and thinking of ourselves as part of the environment rather than apart from it. Weaving environment into my practice provides a useful tool for translating autistic experience. Often misinterpreted in traditional spoken interactions I am only heard/understood through art-making (which for me is stimming). Here lies a tangible border between languages, where people read autistic language, but not everyone speaks it. I will share paintings produced from autistic stimming, creating new multi-sensory expressive languages that seek to be understood. Sharing how I as an autistic artist honour shared space, I interact as a collaborator with the environment and also as an interpreter offering new words and worlds. Eco-poetry takes the human and the natural world as undeniably connected and does not prioritise one over the other. The human and natural worlds are not exclusive of one another, eco-poetry does not centre on a human viewpoint. It is inclusive of plant, water, cave, landscape. It helps us to create new languages and interact with the expressions I get lost in so easily, when art-making.

What is your relationship with colour?

I used to try very hard to make my paintings less colourful, because I know beige and lighter colours sell. But I have no control over what flows out of me, and the colours are always saturated. Strong, powerful. I believe it is due to the autistic experience and my synaesthesia where I experience language, numbers as colour, and music in colour and whilst I create I can hear compositions.

Can you tell us a little about your artistic background?

I am an Autistic/ADHD multi-disciplinary artist, based in the U.K. My work is founded on the contemporary interplay between sound art, experimental forms of composition, language derived from the autistic/ADHD lived experience and live art, under-pinned by political interest and the act of “noticing”. I am a Fine Art practice-based PhD candidate within the Artistic Research Centre (ARC) at Nottingham Trent University (NTU). I am captivated by sensory art-making involving repetitive rhythmic gestures that are both ritualistic and seeing: I involve my body as both instrument and tool, engaging with its intrinsic drum. My work has been supported/presented by partners including A-N, Unlimited, Battersea Arts Centre, LADA, Shape Arts, Tate Modern, Nottingham Contemporary, Guerrilla Zoo, Turtle Key Arts, Drake Music England, Drake Music Scotland, Disability Arts Online and Camden People's Theatre. My academic research explores how autistic stimming is an artistic methodology. I use dreamy world-building and ritual in my films, soundscapes and paintings to disseminate timely truths about invisible challenges from an unflinchingly feminine gaze.

*“I am captivated by sensory art-making involving repetitive rhythmic gestures that are both ritualistic and seeing: I involve my body as both instrument and tool, engaging with its intrinsic drum”*

How do you want the audience to feel when experiencing your art?

I can only share what audiences have shared with me before, I will often have audience members in the form of other autistic/ADHD women or women survivors, who are often rendered to silence, or people with mental health difficulties come out when I share my work. They connect with my art and with the intensity of the relationship between the different components in my pieces: colours, sounds and imagery. My art is a personal invitation to other people to speak out about their life and mortality; to find their own voice or join their voices with each other, with me and with the work.

I hope my art interacts and engages and invites audiences to collaborate and attend to their own practice, whatever that might be for them. My art is an invitation to open up, explore, gather and share.

How do you know when a painting is finished?

I don't really know as I sometimes paint over or repaint or re-layer paintings. I can only say for the exhibition that they are ready to be exhibited for now. But they might still have a journey to go.

What is the significance of putting your works in a health care environment?

As a disabled and autistic artist, I applied for this opportunity as I experience access barriers to show and share my work. This is why I also applied to do a PhD as I kept coming up against so many access barriers. I could only do my PhD if I was awarded a full scholarship and fortunately (and magically!) I was awarded the scholarship. I feel that it was also very magical that I was awarded this opportunity at Creative Health Camden. I applied to Creative Health Camden because as a low income and disabled artist it is incredibly rare to have the opportunity to exhibit in a gallery or space unless you can network and meet people in person which can be harder for me to do. I also love looking at the walls when I visit my GP or have to go to hospital appointments. I think art in hospitals and medical centres is powerful, it can bring joy when clients might be at their lowest, it can ebb (encourage) them on to go create at home or to enjoy a clinical space as an interchangeable gallery. Art is powerful, it can move you, and sometimes remind you of the tiny, wonderful small things in your life, even when everything around you feels overwhelming and stressful. This is why I paint, it's incredibly self-soothing, and supportive to my existence and practice.

An Interview with Elinor Rowlands

Workshop with Georgia Clemson