Eli Tatosian
Algonquin, Illinois, USA
I began creating at a young age and ever since, I have been unable to go a day without making some kind of art. For many years I was self-taught, learning how to draw portraits from instructional books and online tutorials. I filled sketchbook after sketchbook with recreations of portrait photography from Pinterest, using pencil and occasionally paint. During college I received formal instruction and expanded into watercolor, oil paint, colored pencil, marker, pastels, charcoal, and three-dimensional media including ceramics and sculpture. I received my Bachelor’s degree in Studio Art from North Central College in 2022. Now I hope to grow my craft as an interdisciplinary artist who draws inspiration from the intersections of reality and nonreality, the human form, and the ways we interact with the seemingly mundane world around us.
The human form has always inspired me. I spent several years drawing portraits almost exclusively, and I adored drawing eyes in particular. As cliché as it sounds, the eyes are indeed the windows to the soul. The complexity of each one provides a challenge, and to this day I will draw eyes if I am not drawing anything else. My appreciation for the human form as a whole was fed during college with life drawing classes and anatomy studies. It was also during this time that I began taking more inspiration from my own dreams. I have always been a very vivid dreamer and I have written my dreams down since adolescence. The things I see in dreams are nonsensical and deeply devoid of context when I put them onto paper, creating an open-ended narrative for the viewer. Combining this with my appreciation for the human body has led me to develop a body of work that often captures people in strange, uncanny settings and scenarios. This has also spilled into my three-dimensional work; I now possess a number of odd ceramic sculptures and painted bowls that are lifted directly from my subconscious mind. Throughout the years I have been inspired by artists such as Jenny Saville, Eva Gamayun, Xue Jiye, and others.
Ahead of me lies a massive river with countless tributaries to be explored. My career is young—at this point in time, it has barely started at all. And while this is intimidating in some regards, it also fills me with excitement and determination to capture as much of the world—both waking and otherwise—as I can, and to share it with others.
