BIOGRAPHY

David Ellingsen is a Canadian photographer creating images that speak to the relationship between humans and the natural world. Across his varied projects Ellingsen acts as both archivist and surrealist using hybrids of traditional documentary methods, staged constructions, and photographic process.

Ellingsen began his career as a freelance assignment photographer with clients that included the New York Times Magazine, DDB, Mens Journal, CBC Radio Canada, Telus and MTV/Nickelodeon. Simultaneously, he was exhibiting personal work within public and private galleries in Canada, the USA, and Asia and appearing as an educator at post-secondary institutions in British Columbia. Ellingsen continued this hybrid path for 12 years and then, in 2013, focused fully on his artistic practice.

Ellingsen’s photographs have been exhibited around the world and are part of the permanent collections of the Chinese Museum of Photography, South Korea's Datz Museum of Art and Canada's Beaty Biodiversity Museum. They have been shortlisted for Photolucida's Critical Mass Book Award, awarded First Place at the Prix de la Photographie Paris and the International Photography Awards in the USA.

Ellingsen lives and makes his work in Canada’s Pacific Northwest, moving between Victoria and the remote island of Cortes where he was raised.

STATEMENT / EDITION 10

"Most of my photographs explore the environmental crisis and climate change and these portfolios at Edition 10 are created alongside that work. Captured slowly over the last 17 years, these photographs are evidence of personal journeys - made while working on the aforementioned projects - providing spiritual evocations on the value of liminal spaces at the meeting point of land, sea and sky.

Using a process pioneered to a great extent by Michael Kenna, the in-camera, long-exposure format, building seconds and minutes into a single photograph, serves to capture the allure of these places and recall the senses that awaken and wash over us whenever we get away from it all.

Out in the wilderness, we often find ourselves.

In the Pacific Northwest, and further afield, I’ve spent countless hours standing at the water’s edge - that wavering intersection between land, sea and sky where everything seems so elemental, so pure and we can reconnect with our natural origins. That is the spirit that I intend to capture in these photographs."

- D.E.

OTHER WORK

You can see the environmental work at www.davidellingsen.com