Scraps

by me, styling by Yelena Buck, model: Holly Denny (Next Models), Make up by Mia Yang, Hair by KIYO with thanks to my assistant Hayley Lousia Brown

Detached, forgetting, feeling numb. Don’t remember how to sulk. Sex is the only thing that makes me feel. Remind me of purpose. Scenery wakes me up. Breathe again. Hold it until I'm back.

Lungs full already. Tender eye ducts. Pressure and cry. Worried jealous.

Documents

by me, styling by Linda Portman Sagum, model: Kim (Next Models), Make up by Mia Yang, Hair by KIYO

My Father is a biker (motor biker) he raced a bit and slowed down when I was a kid he took up photographing races instead. They (my parents) used to be part of bike gangs, most of which they still are and sometimes the sight of them both in leathers can bring me to tears.
When I was a little girl I was left with the next door neighbour when they went out. One day they all came home with the usual low buzz of bikes and brakes only on this day the women where hysterical. They all took off their helmets and walked in to my house. My mum spoke to Sue-lin my neighbour and explained that I had to stay with them for a bit longer on that day.
My friend Po-yee and I were trying to jump over the wall and see what was happening. We got nowhere.
Slowly everyone went home and my mum came round to pick me up.
They explained to me that a friend of the family had died and that if I hadn’t noticed already ‘it was very sad’.
It just so happened that my parents had witnessed their friend’s head come clean off in its helmet.
Apparently my dad’s natural reaction to this event was to raise his camera and photograph it.
For weeks my mum wouldn’t let him develop the film. They would argue and argue about it. Eventually my dad ignored her and hand printed it, Mum would never allow it in the house so dad hung it in the garage. I wasn’t allowed to look at it. But I would always try to.
I think he was right to document it because that way the event was harder to forget. Perhaps that’s what my mother took aversion.
She is a repressor by nature largely owed to the fact that she is from a generation that sweeps things under the carpet. I can honestly say that the day I see my friends severed head in front of me I too will photograph it, it’s the least I could do to help preserve their memory.

Arthur's show.

Poster designed by PRIZME

Myself and my other half have been working on an exhibition of Arthur Ranson's work that opens tomorrow at Orbital Comics (near Leicester Square in London).
The private view will be from 8.00 tomorrow and there will be free drinks, not to mention we will be selling posters from the show signed by Arthur.
He is such an inspiration to both Tobias and I and it would be great to see of your faces (Susu this means you also!)

With love
Ellen.

P.s, I would like to thank my dear friend Mr Warren Ellis for helping me with the publicity and another dear friend Mr Garry Leach for introducing me to Arthur, and of course the notorious Rich Johnston.

Insects

Photographs by me, Masks by Keko Hainswheeler and Jewellery from Mavi Power Staiano.
With thanks to Matthew Josephs and Jess Dubeck.

As a child I associated death with animals, and animals with men.
Early on I decided that I would never eat animals as it felt like I would be eating a dead boy and I was above such things. I am still surprised today when someone tells me that their pet is a female, I will still refer to it as a he and I still refuse to eat animals.

Insects however were fair game.
I would catch spiders and pull them apart eat them and look at the chewed parts.
I loved to sit for hours in fount of my house and watch the ants, when I fully realised the intricate homes they occupied, I would nip indoors boil the kettle and pour the boiling water down the holes until they would drown and float out. The water never needed to be boiled it just seemed to add assurance to me that they would die in it.
Id watch flies suffocate and pour the collected winged insects into my bath while I cleaned myself watching their life fade away.

I feel it may have been a precursor to sexuality. My single need to control life.
Of cause it would later manifest its self in manipulation and creation, with less obvious destruction. For the female adult alone can cause both devastation and creation simply by living.