About the artist
Elise Garnaut is a Berlin based Australian visual artist. She has been painting and exhibiting since a young age. She was born and brought up in Melbourne. Over the past 2 decades she has lived in Europe. She has exhibited in Hong Kong, Paris, London, Brighton, Berlin, Rome, Venice and Melbourne.
Her paintings unite the influences of great European painters, such as, Matisse, Chagall, Steinlen, Klimt and Niki de Saint Phalle in a vibrant, bold and naïve style. Her works combine the strong and brilliant colours of Australia and the floral motives and synthesis of line and colour typically found in oriental art.
In Rome, she worked with street cats and her speciality is in feline and animal portraiture, based on her volunteer work in animal welfare. Over time her art has taken on different faces, different purposes and different lives depending on her influences and surroundings.
In Paris she painted street performers, in Berlin she painted angels, in Rome she painted the city's street cats. In Brighton UK, she painted the gardens of the city’s residents. Throughout her many years as a travelling visual artist, she has always painted landscapes, more often than not, in the context of cities.
Elise also trained 3 years ago in India as a yoga and meditation teacher. Since then she has taught on yoga retreats in both Spain and the UK. In these settings she has also created visual art workshops that bring together the practise of art and mindful meditation.