BY TAMARA BELKOV
Local artist and gallery owner Irvin Elwood Marshall is well
known for his abstracts and wall murals. However, Marshall is
less known for his work as a teacher of art.
His former student and mural artist Ellie Lagrandeur has
become a popular painter in southern Ontario. Marshall says her
skill lies in her ability to interpret someone else's dream and
turn it into her own vision.
"Ellie's work has taken off," Marshal says with pride.
"She's doing her own work and it's selling well. Ellie knows
what her customers like."
Working on large walls and ceilings, Lagrandeur is best known for her trompe-l'oeil murals.
The trompe-l'oeil style of painting fools or tricks the eye.
To look at Lagrandeur's depiction of a Roman column painted on
a wall is to believe the wall has taken on a third dimension.
Many of her original wall murals don the walls of London's
popular restaurants and pubs and can be seen on her website,
www.elliefinearts.com
.
Expanding her appeal, Lagrandeur paints on canvas to create
original decorative art. Much of her work is displayed and sold
in furniture stores and through the web. Her favorite subjects
are animals and Celtic images.
Growing up in the Sudbury region, Lagrandeur has blended her
native heritage and observations of northern wildlife with her
Irish genes to come up with a fanciful style filled with
spirituality and respect for her subject matter.
Included in the current exhibition are three paintings
featuring horses. The originals range in price from $600 to
$1,000, with prints of her work available in a lower price
range.
Lagrandeur will be in Sudbury at the Marshall Gallery on Elgin Street on May 26 to sign her prints. Her works will be on exhibit until mid-June.
