Captured during artist Ella Morton’s 2024 residency at La Wayaka Current in the Atacama Desert in Northern Chile and subsequent travels in Rapa Nui (Easter Island), this body of work experiments with a range of analogue processes, including mordançage on 4x5 colour negatives, film soup techniques and the use of decades-old expired films. Conjuring psychedelic dreamscapes with these processes—Morton examines the deep connection to the sky, the stars and the numinous palpable in these locations—excavating the latent possibilities within emulsion to manifest the energies present within these remote and volatile landscapes.
Ella Morton holds a BFA from Parsons School of Design and an MFA from York University. Morton has exhibited at Lonsdale Gallery, Foley Gallery, 516 Arts, Contemporary Calgary, SPAO Gallery, the Turchin Center, Photographic Center Northwest and Hanstholm Art Space, with upcoming solo exhibitions at the Halide Project and Cambridge Galleries. Morton was the recipient of the 2021 Environmental Award from Center Santa Fe and a 2023 Chalmers Fellowship from the Ontario Arts Council. She lives and works in Toronto.
