Poppies in Relief

Three monumental poppies — golden, crimson, and burnt orange — dominate this extraordinary mixed media work, their thick impasto petals built up from the surface so they seem to lean forward into the room. But the real revelation is the border: Eliane has cut dozens of circular and scalloped collage elements from painted papers and layered them around the central image like petals around a flower's core, each disc carrying its own miniature world of pattern, color, and texture. The background between flower and collage edge is pure teal — a color that makes the warm poppies ignite. This is a painting that exists simultaneously in two dimensions and three, a work of art that is also a handmade object, sculptural in its ambition and deeply intimate in its detail. Every collage piece was chosen and placed by hand. Every petal was built up stroke by stroke. This is what Eliane means when she says art belongs on everything — including the very shape of the canvas itself.