Honorable Mention
Ebb and Flow, 2025
DESCRIPTION
The South West Coast Path and the South Dorset Ridgeway are ancient trails that stretch from Dorset in the east to Cornwall in the far southwest of England. For millennia these natural elevated byways have been critically important to local people. With expansive views across the Jurassic landscape to the sea beyond, these highpoints still evoke the ancient communities who used them as vantage points and safe routes through hostile lands and as sacred destinations for religious rites and burials. Long barrows, burial mounds, stone circles and the hillforts of Chalbury and Maiden Castle date from the Neolithic to the Bronze Ages, rivalling Stonehenge and Avebury in historical importance. Standing in these ancient locations the past is tangibly close, but even in these protected landscapes human impact can be seen everywhere. Plastic on the beaches, nets on the shore, dead seabirds and fish, farm runoff and sewage outflows, moving from land into rivers and from rivers to the sea.
Man-made environmental pollutants move through different landscapes, a sometimes visible and often invisible cross contamination from one ecosystem to another. With swirling and unnatural looking cloudscapes these images contain intentionally artificial forms, out of place against the backdrop of ancient natural landscapes.
Made by throwing, pouring and scattering organic liquids into water, the motion draws out tendrils and creates swirling shapes. These false clouds are suspended and stretched across the sky, appearing caught on the wind or carried by the tide; thunderclouds, mists and storms that don’t belong. A stark reminder of the climate emergency, they foreshadow the ecological concerns of climate change against an ancient natural world teetering on the edge.
AUTHOR
Ellie Davies (Born 1976) lives in Dorset and works in the woods and forests of Southern England. She gained her MA in Photography from London College of Communication.Davies is represented by Crane Kalman Brighton Gallery in the UK, A.Galerie in Paris, Dimmitt Contemporary Art in Houston and Austin Texas, Susan Spiritus Gallery in California, Gilman Contemporary in Sun Valley Idaho and Brucie Collections Kyiv.
Davies released two new bodies of work in 2025 – Ebb and Flow and Wear Pool Triptych.
Davies’ Weir Pool Triptych has been shortlisted for the Aesthetica Art Prize 2025 and will be exhibited at York Art Gallery from 18 September to 25 February 2026.
Ebb and Flow has been selected for an Honourable Mention and an Official Selection in the IPA Photography Awards 2025, in the Professional Fine Art Landscape category.
10 huge billboard-sized prints from the Stars and Between the Trees series were exhibited at Glastonbury Festival as part of the Shangri La field’s ‘Wilding’ theme for 2025.
A new monograph of Davies' work spanning work from the last 10 years was published in July by Crane Kalman Brighton Gallery and A.galerie Paris.
Recent group exhibitions include Distinct Voices – Inspiring Color Photography at Gilman Contemporary Gallery USA from May-July 2025.
Return to Nature at Pearl Museum in Shanghai and Where the Wild Roses Grow at Museum Gazhane in Istanbul as part of the 212 Festival.
Chalk Streams received a Gold award in the PX3 Paris Photo Prize 2023 Nature and Water, and was awarded Finalist in the Klompching Fresh 2023 Awards, and an Honorable mention in the ND Awards 2023. Chalk Streams 10 was selected for the Earth Photo Awards 2023 which opened at The Royal Geographical Society in London before touring nine UK national forests - Grizedale Forest, Sidney Nolan Trust,
