Wednesday, 28 March 2018
Introducing Ellinna Horton
135 artists are taking part in "Inside Job" which takes place on the 7th and 8th of April on Level 6 of Tate Modern. Over the next few weeks The Rebel Magazine will be chatting to some of the Tate staff who are showing their artwork. Today it's the turn of Ellinna Horton
Q) Where did you grow up and what kind of education did you receive?
"Most of my childhood was spent growing up in a tiny council house with my Mum in the middle of Cambridgeshire. From the accent, people assume I'm a bit boujie and probably well educated but I take pride in my special measures secondary school and humble little house. When I look back at my time at school I don't necessarily remember learning anything, just the friendships and the weird musky smell in the science corridor. I'm now finishing up at Goldsmiths, which has (mostly) been a dream and it's really nice to know I've come so far from my middle-of-nowhere town."
Q) How long have you been working at the Tate and what's the best show you've seen there?
"I've been working at Tate Modern for about 4 months so I'm still quite fresh. The best show I've seen recently is All Too Human at Tate Britain but I'm really looking forward to seeing Picasso 1932. All the exhibitions I've worked amongst so far have a special appeal to them - even Modigliani's ever long collection of reclining nudes has started to grow on me a bit."
Q) What can you tell me about the work you're exhibiting in the Tate Modern show?
"The work I'm exhibiting is one half of my final piece for my BA. I've made four sculptures - or 'heads' of characters. These characters represent the elite members of society and are actually inspired by some of the visitors I see at work. I've taken a kind of satirical approach to them: antagonising them and flipping the capitalist hierarchy we're all familiar with today. The counterpart is a 4 piece series of comic strips, showing their interactions with their working class confidentes to highlight the societal differences between the bourgeois and the proletariat. Overall, I wanted to explore what would happen if the tables turned; if those that are the most powerful became the weakest and vice versa. But, it is important to remember that while the spectator may laugh at, be offended by, or feel completely neutral towards my work, there is a poignant reality behind what I'm trying to convey - the working class suffer every day so that 'characters' like these can exist unscathed."
Q) How can people find out more about your work - do you have a website or do Instagram?
"I have two Instagram accounts but I'm bad at both of them. My website is a work in progress but you'll find everything on there - ellinnahorton.com
"Inside Job": An exhibition of art by Tate Staff will take place on Level 6 of the Blavatnik Building of Tate Modern, Bankside, London SE1 9TG http://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-modern
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