About Ellen

South African-born writer, artist, and filmmaker, Ellen Palestrant, currently resides in Arizona. She was educated in South Africa and Britain and immigrated with her family to the USA in 1987. Ellen has been a game inventor, hydroponic farmer, special education teacher, television scriptwriter, film producer, college instructor, and co-publisher of a college press. Ellen has 16 published books which include fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Her art has been exhibited in many galleries and is in a number of private collections in the USA, Canada and Australia.

“For me,” Ellen says, “Creativity suggests interconnectivity across many different disciplines. It is both the silent and the exuberant language of affinity and kinship. Boundless creativity transcends perceived boundaries, be they personal, social, national or international. For me, the arts, although personally experienced, are in many ways, a shared familiarity in the initial joy, expectation, anticipatory excitement before beginning something new and enjoying the work of others. Ever since I was a child and still today, my fingers literally tingle before I start or continue with a new project. It would be hard for me to imagine my life severed from the creative process and all its commensurate possibilities.”

Ellen calls herself a Possibilitiest because as she says, “I’m compelled to penetrate glimpses – those fleeting flashes of possibility – hunches – invaluable intuitive moments that can lead to discovery and intuition. I begin by putting down layers of paint – many colors in haphazard fashion. In the same way, I put down layers of thoughts as they come to me. Later, I explore and fulfil their potential by taking up residence in what unfolds – in seemingly magical, ethereal, beguiling, multi-dimensional paintings of dream-like worlds, fleeting images on varied surfaces using different combinations of acrylic paints, watercolor, iridescent, interference and fluorescent paints and inks.”