Ellen Weitkamp
ARTIST STATEMENT
My work examines the passage of time through the lens of memory, domestic space, and the quiet moments that often go unnoticed. I am drawn to the subtle emotional residue left behind in familiar environments: how a pause in conversation was so quiet I could hear the wind outside or how the sunlight streaming through the window made me notice the cracks in our ceiling. Through painting and printmaking, I seek to make tangible what is fleeting: the tension between remembering and forgetting, permanence and impermanence.
Working primarily in oil paint and lithography, my process begins with quick, uncomposed, iPhone photographs taken from my everyday life. These serve not as endpoints, but as catalysts for re-seeing. By editing, layering, and reconfiguring these images, I move beyond mere documentation to a place where memory, perception, and emotion intersect. In painting, I explore how the physical act of mark-making parallels the instability of recollection, how gestures can reveal what words cannot. Lithography, with its demanding process and element of unpredictability, offers a counterbalance in forcing me to relinquish control and embrace the unexpected.
The spaces I depict function as vessels for both personal and collective memory. They invite viewers to inhabit the in-between moments of transition where time slows and meaning lingers. My practice is ultimately an attempt to preserve the impermanent, to hold onto the small, transient details that define our sense of presence. In each composition, I aim to infuse a heightened presence, a subtle nuance of the mundane, and a conscious effort to capture the unrepresentable, the ephemeral nature of time.
Ellen Weitkamp is an artist based in Portland, Maine. She received her MFA in Painting from Boston University in 2024 and her BFA in Painting and Art History from the Kansas City Art Institute in 2019. Weitkamp’s work has been exhibited nationally, including recent exhibitions at Alpha Gallery, Boston; Morgan Lehman Gallery, New York; the Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockland; and Boston University’s Stone Gallery. Her paintings and prints have also been featured in group shows across New England. Weitkamp was included in the 2025 CMCA Biennial in Rockland, Maine, and her work has been recognized through exhibitions and publications that spotlight emerging voices in contemporary painting. She lives and works in Portland, Maine.
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