Bio

Born in Oslo, Norway, Lise Ellingsen moved to New York to earn a BFA at School of Visual Arts in Graphic Design. After working in the advertising industry, equally adept in digital, print and TV/video storytelling, and earning multiple awards for over 15 years, she graduated with a Master of Fine Arts in Visual Arts from Vermont College of Fine Arts in 2021.

Ellingsen’s work is focused on the female position in the relationship to nature and the spirituality of nature and animals. She uses humor as a tool to overcome the existential angst she experiences in western culture, a culture where she believes the detachment and destruction of nature is an existential threat. In her body of work, she expresses a strong search for meaning through sculpture, drawing, animation and video performance. 

In recents projects she features ethereal imagery from Norway, stunning and austere landscapes to reflect her take on commercial and pop culture through her Norwegian heritage, stretching back to the Viking Age, when the Norse Mythology flourished.

Ellingsen attended art residencies at the Small Projects Art Residency in Norway, the Fine Art Work Center print studio, Michael David Artist Residency in the US, and RUC Residency in Italy. She has two Solo Shows this spring 2023 in Chashama Gallery Space and Trygve Lie Gallery NYC. In 2022, she had an International Virtual Solo Show with the Arts To Hearts Project and showed work in group show venues such as the Scandinavia House Gallery, Prince Street Gallery and NYC Crit Club’s D9.

She is the founder of “Artists for Animals,” a series of global exhibitions where emerging artists donate work to fundraise for selected animals in need.

In 2011, Elingsen created a T-shirt design company, BlondesMakeBetterTshirts.com, with her quirky feminist T-shirts selling globally in stores such as Nordstrom and Saks Fifth Avenue, and been published globally in magazines such as Nylon Japan, Elle Singapore and Seventeen Magazines in the USA.