About
Born and raised in Greensboro, NC, Elissa Paula resides in Boone, NC, working towards her BFA in Studio Art at Appalachian State University. Elissa primarily works within the medium of painting, but her passions lie in learning new methods of making and expanding herself to an interdisciplinary artist. Within the last year, Elissa has worked between the figure and abstraction to create work about the feminine experience. Her work was published in The Peel Literary and Arts Review multiple times and she had a collaborative show with Hannah Little in 2022.
Artist Statement
My work surveys the emotional landscape of womanhood, using the figure and bodily sensations as inspiration for abstract, lively sculptures. I draw from lived emotions and shape them into forms that bend, swell, twist, and stretch. They are not literal depictions of bodies but impressions of them, shaped through organic silhouettes and vibrant surfaces that evoke human presence. Color and texture are central to how I construct meaning; the use of layered surfaces, tactile glazes, and hand-built motifs reflects the physical and psychological experience of being in one’s own skin.