Exploring the wonders of nature and the human spirit, I turn to water. Water invites me to exploit its raw fluidity: dancing and pooling and reflecting; water gives immediacy and vibrancy to my abstract work. A great influence on my work since I returned to school in oncology massage therapy twenty years ago has been Traditional Chinese Medicine in which the seasonal phase of Water, the quiet energy of winter, turns nature's energy inward, moving deep.
Using water-based materials—acrylics, inks, gouache, watercolor--layered with graphite, colored pencils, or gel medium, water guides my route over papers of varying absorbency and surfaces. When I was still practicing massage and oncology care, clients came to me seeking well-being at the most pressing times in their lives, and as their most authentic selves. I remain their grateful student, ever learning from them to be fearless and vulnerable in what I want my work to say.
Just as water’s energy moves downward, germinating and transforming, my focus turns inward in the studio. Painting is my creative meditation. As essential to my work as it is to the body—and to life itself—water connects me to the natural world and to what it means to be human.
Using water-based materials—acrylics, inks, gouache, watercolor--layered with graphite, colored pencils, or gel medium, water guides my route over papers of varying absorbency and surfaces. When I was still practicing massage and oncology care, clients came to me seeking well-being at the most pressing times in their lives, and as their most authentic selves. I remain their grateful student, ever learning from them to be fearless and vulnerable in what I want my work to say.
Just as water’s energy moves downward, germinating and transforming, my focus turns inward in the studio. Painting is my creative meditation. As essential to my work as it is to the body—and to life itself—water connects me to the natural world and to what it means to be human.
BIO
A native New Yorker recently transplanted to Chicago, Ellen Wertheim has over her career worked in both textiles and mixed media on paper—producing vibrant, richly-colored abstract works.
Wertheim’s work in textiles began in her teenage years, with a small clothing allowance and a big love of fashion, art, and design. Her early designs of her own clothes and her pattern-making led eventually to building a business designing women’s and children’s clothing. In the early 1990s in New York City, Wertheim shifted her textile work to fabric installations and custom designed Jewish ritual textiles using both abstract and geometric design. Her commissioned textiles can be found in synagogues and homes in the U.S., Europe, and Mexico. Her ritual textiles and works on paper have been exhibited at numerous Jewish institutions and conferences including the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, Wyncote, PA, and in New York City at the Union of American Hebrew Congregations and the Jewish Theological Seminary, and have been carried by Judaica shops at Council of American Jewish Museums including the Celebrations Shop (formerly the Design Shop) at The Jewish Museum in Manhattan, the B’nai B’rith Klutznick Museum in Washington, DC, and the Maurice Spertus Museum of Judaica, Chicago.
Largely self-taught as a painter, Wertheim also studied at the Harmanus Bleecker Center in Albany, NY; and in New York City at the Art Students League, The Cooper Union, and School of Visual Arts. Group and solo exhibits of Wertheim’s works on paper include shows in the Albany, NY tri-city area—at the Rensselaer County Council for the Arts, the Schatz Fine Arts Center, the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's Shellnutt Gallery, the Clinton Street Gallery, the Stuyvesant Exhibition, the Lark Street Galleria--and in New York City at White Columns Gallery, World Congress International Conference, and several corporate settings. Wertheim’s decades of working in the arts have also overlapped with her career in healthcare and integrated her concerns with the body—first as a medical technologist and, eventually, and most importantly, as a licensed massage therapist specializing in oncology; holistically practicing both Eastern and Western medicine.
Finally, Wertheim’s artistic production includes graphic design and book cover art (Joanne Jacobson’s Hunger Artist: A Suburban Childhood, from Bottom Dog Press, and Marla Brettschneider’s Cornerstones of Peace: Jewish Identity Politics and Democratic Theory and The Narrow Bridge: Jewish Values of Multiculturalism, both from Rutgers University Press), as well as website, conference, marketing and brochure materials for organizations like the New York State Association of Community & Residential Agencies (NYSACRA), Albany, NY, and Ma’yan, The Jewish Women’s Project in New York.
A native New Yorker recently transplanted to Chicago, Ellen Wertheim has over her career worked in both textiles and mixed media on paper—producing vibrant, richly-colored abstract works.
Wertheim’s work in textiles began in her teenage years, with a small clothing allowance and a big love of fashion, art, and design. Her early designs of her own clothes and her pattern-making led eventually to building a business designing women’s and children’s clothing. In the early 1990s in New York City, Wertheim shifted her textile work to fabric installations and custom designed Jewish ritual textiles using both abstract and geometric design. Her commissioned textiles can be found in synagogues and homes in the U.S., Europe, and Mexico. Her ritual textiles and works on paper have been exhibited at numerous Jewish institutions and conferences including the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, Wyncote, PA, and in New York City at the Union of American Hebrew Congregations and the Jewish Theological Seminary, and have been carried by Judaica shops at Council of American Jewish Museums including the Celebrations Shop (formerly the Design Shop) at The Jewish Museum in Manhattan, the B’nai B’rith Klutznick Museum in Washington, DC, and the Maurice Spertus Museum of Judaica, Chicago.
Largely self-taught as a painter, Wertheim also studied at the Harmanus Bleecker Center in Albany, NY; and in New York City at the Art Students League, The Cooper Union, and School of Visual Arts. Group and solo exhibits of Wertheim’s works on paper include shows in the Albany, NY tri-city area—at the Rensselaer County Council for the Arts, the Schatz Fine Arts Center, the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's Shellnutt Gallery, the Clinton Street Gallery, the Stuyvesant Exhibition, the Lark Street Galleria--and in New York City at White Columns Gallery, World Congress International Conference, and several corporate settings. Wertheim’s decades of working in the arts have also overlapped with her career in healthcare and integrated her concerns with the body—first as a medical technologist and, eventually, and most importantly, as a licensed massage therapist specializing in oncology; holistically practicing both Eastern and Western medicine.
Finally, Wertheim’s artistic production includes graphic design and book cover art (Joanne Jacobson’s Hunger Artist: A Suburban Childhood, from Bottom Dog Press, and Marla Brettschneider’s Cornerstones of Peace: Jewish Identity Politics and Democratic Theory and The Narrow Bridge: Jewish Values of Multiculturalism, both from Rutgers University Press), as well as website, conference, marketing and brochure materials for organizations like the New York State Association of Community & Residential Agencies (NYSACRA), Albany, NY, and Ma’yan, The Jewish Women’s Project in New York.
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