The Canadian artist Elly Smallwood grew up in Ottawa, and has been painting ever since she can remember. She studied art at the Ontario College of Art and Design, and now lives and works in Toronto. She primarily works with oils, creating large-scale paintings which capture the vitality and movement of the human body. Some of the figures have no face, while the rest of their bodies appear slashed through with deep wounds.

As fellow artist Riddhi Kanetkar has written, ‘I love the way in which Smallwood paints the female body; she uses a variety of body types that deviate from the traditional female body that is often constructed under the male artistic gaze. In particular, Smallwood’s amalgamation of flowers, superimposed onto a figure of the female body, both enhances the delicacy of it, whilst the bold outline attributes it with a degree of agency and power. The brush strokes are big, bold, and encompass the fluidity and ever-changing nature of the body – it is never static. Smallwood uses expressionism as a medium to convey her ideas; her work therefore reflects her own perceptions of femininity and female sexuality. This underpins the very notion of feminism – the fact that there is no one set of images that represent women’s experience, but rather it is an expression of all our individual thoughts and experiences. Her work demonstrates how art can be a powerful tool to express our identity.’

Elly Smallwood creates paintings that are both aesthetically and emotionally layered. In her works you can see someone that seems familiar, or you can feel that you also have such a feeling that shows us the artist. As she explains, ‘Without a doubt, sexuality provokes the strongest reaction in people, especially when it’s something that people construe as vulgar. I’m all for making my viewers think about their response!’

Elly Smallwood’s website can be found here, and her Facebook page here.

We are very grateful to our Russian friend Yuri for suggesting the inclusion of this artist, and for supplying many of the images.

Similar artists

Aleah Chapin – American painter of large-scale unidealised older bodies.
Joëlle Dubois – Belgian contemporary painter of intimate figurative-erotic subjects.
Marlene Dumas – South African painter of psychologically charged figurative-erotic subjects.
Joyce Polance – American painter of intimate, emotionally charged groupings of women.
Jenny Saville – British painter of unflinching naked figures and bodily reality.
Ambera Wellmann – Canadian contemporary painter of figurative-erotic subjects.
Lisa Yuskavage – American painter of figurative-erotic subjects in a classical mode.