Ellie Dragone

Working with assemblage, drawing and installation, I've been exploring connections to surface and materials of objects by interrogating their deeper context in society. The work dissassembles the existing everyday and presents a reimagined, new material language. I’ve been exploring the ambiguous space between something familiar; a presence, body or an environment, with the collision of the playful and the abstract. I've been observing the material languages of environments like the boxing gym through a feminist lens. I'm interested in what we chose to put on display, the familiarities we surround ourselves with and how aesthetic languages embedded in society trigger ideas of class, gender and identity.

Extract from Last 30, let’s go

Apart from the smell, the next thing that became apparent was the noise. It was like nothing I’d heard before, like an irregular beat of
music, screeches of feet moving, the constant punching of padded equipment. In a room full of around twenty-five boys, I was the only girl. I was ten and I loved every second.  

‘Right El, 20 minutes of skipping to warm up.’ 

I started skipping next to two others who looked slightly older than me. They were too focused on making sure their techniques were consistent to worry about me. I scouted the room, Luca and my dad were off doing pad work, some were shadow boxing, others were on the bag and two were sparring in the ring. There was an overwhelming amount of energy in one space, a mix of adrenaline and endorphins heightening all the senses.  

Deliciously bulbous gloves on every pair of hands, half a dozen bursting leather bags hanging from the ceiling, or from chunky metal bars. Flashes of blue, red, orange flying at speed, flags hung like trophies, the eyes of old posters staring back at you. Thick, red, rubber, roped around the square centre piece. There was something so raw, yet something so slick, and attractive about everything in this space.