Biography

Ella Ratliff (b. 2004) is an American painter based in South Dakota. She is currently pursuing her Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, majoring in Fine Arts (Drawing & Painting) with a minor in Creative Writing.
 

In her practice, Ratliff balances surrealistic high realism with two-dimensional, decorative elements. The duality of detailed figures and appropriated medieval illumination archives her life and thoughts through the act of painting. Manuscripts were visual tools for preserving knowledge, so Ratliff incorporates these flat shapes nod to intangibles—feelings, thoughts, memories—while realism symbolizes physical items. She creates distinctive, visually controlled narratives that are open to interpretation. Ratliff works primarily with watercolor and uses the meditativeness of painting to bring the impossible to life. The mediums she uses are flexible, allowing her to achieve intricate details through layering processes. These layers allow for self-realization and chronicle a narrative of her emotions, nostalgia, and experiences. She questions her identity through unique compositions, allegories, escapism, and the renewal of old stories. Ratliff’s subjective paintings present her literally or vicariously through the personas of her childhood plushies. These stuffed animals are extensions of her childhood, and Ratliff treats them as if they have thoughts and feelings. Her first stuffed animal, Lion, is a motif that recurs to mirror her current identity.

Apart from being an artist and full-time student, Ratliff has been competitively making art since 2021. Since then, her work has been awarded 54 times and showcased in over 20 exhibitions internationally. In 2023, her first solo exhibition, The Bigger Picture, opened in the Washington Pavilion Shultz Gallery in her hometown of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. She also works as a pet portrait artist, illustrator, graphic designer, and private art instructor.