Yvette Gellis: A Painter of 'Ephemera'

It was a warm morning in Santa Monica on the eve of the 405 closure and the city felt remarkably quiet and still. The parking lot of the 18th Street Arts Center was half-empty, and artists were busy working in their studios before the supposed Westside traffic delays begin. Yvette Gellis was settling into her large studio, finishing work before making an inevitable trek back to the San Fernando Valley. The Encino artist is preparing for her solo exhibition at the Garboushian Gallery in Beverly Hills, opening Saturday. 

The large-scale paintings (many of them are more than 100 inches long) that make up her show are whimsical, dream-like portals into another world. A world, perhaps, that is inspired by deconstruction and the gritty underbelly of Los Angeles rather than perfectly groomed suburbs. Capturing the “duality” between good and evil is the essence of some of Gellis’ pieces, she said. 

“I have had a certain fascination with dualities and opposing forces,” she said. “I do feel that my pieces are in many ways about trying to get to the light in the landscape.”

Some of the landscapes that she portrays are modeled after broken-down buildings or areas torn apart. Gellis photographed and documented a house next door that was ripped apart and destroyed by hand, which inspired her to paint her representation of the event. It seems that Gellis has always had an interest in deconstruction and deterioration; as a child growing up in an English Tudor house in the Midwest, she eventually saw the lush area she once called a playground demolished to become a housing development.

“That beautiful place where I grew up was torn asunder,” she said.

The realization of buildings and human bodies being temporary is the idea behind the name of her show, Ephemera. And while the material landscapes in her paintings may be fleeting, she is constantly documenting the world around her, though she said she rarely follows a photograph in her work. 

“I take all those photographs and I sift through them and I make Xerox copies,” she said. “It’s really a documentation of how I’m seeing the world.”

Gellis related her creative process to that of a flâneur, a French word for someone who strolls about idly. The term was applied to early photographers who wandered about, capturing chance events on film, she said.

“That’s kind of what I do,” she said. “When I read that, I thought, that’s me, totally.”

Gellis once had a less flexible lifestyle that didn't lend itself to wandering around for inspiration. A mother of two, she decided to pursue a master’s degree at Claremont Graduate University when her children were very young. Her schedule revolved around helping them with their homework, painting and writing essays on theory. All while driving from the Valley to Claremont every week. She endured the rigorous schedule and demanding workload through positive thinking, she said. 

In Gellis’ studio, a space with unusually high ceilings that the artist said she is starting to outgrow, there are no windows. Yet her pieces lining the walls give the sense of trapped light and illuminate the room. Though interpretation of the landscapes she paints is subjective, light remains the understood focal point.

Gellis said she sometimes thinks too much about creating a new piece, and it is hard to know when to stop working on a painting. She recently had an interested buyer fall in love with two paintings before she deemed them complete, which made her aware of when to stop adding to a piece and let the purpose of the art take shape. 

“The work really takes on a life of its own,” she said. “There’s a freedom in that, knowing that the work will exist and speak for itself and you’re kind of just a facilitator in many ways.”

Ephemera will be on view from Saturday through Aug. 27 at Garboushian Gallery, 427 N. Camden Dr., Beverly Hills. The opening reception is Saturday, from 6 to 8 p.m.