Elisa Crossing: Move me!

Move me! is Elisa Crossing's instinctive response to the question: 'What do I want paintings to do?'

Move me! is an exploration of the active and embodied nature of looking. It builds on the theme of "slow looking", which has been central to Elisa Crossing's practice for many years and is a position that runs counter to the ethos of the digital economy, venerating speed and promising the joy of 'frictionless' experiences. For Crossing, friction is essential to the process of painting and how she makes meaning from it.

Incorporating scenes of the artist's studio, the site of active looking, and inspiration from the bodily rhythm implied in Fragonard's painting The Swing, these paintings have been made to mirror the to and fro of the painter in the studio, leaning forward to paint and stepping back to reflect. Up close, details in the painting dissolve into abstraction and sensation; from a distance, rhythms, structures, and contexts emerge. From this oscillation between intimacy and distance, it is revealed that seeing is never fixed or complete.