Living Colour – Wendy Fransella and Ella Johnstone

The two artists showing at Level Best Art Gallery in August are Wendy Fransella and Ella Johnstone, both who are known for their work with the local community and abstract expressive paintings.

Ella Johnstone’s work

Ella Johnston has been an exhibiting artist for more than 20 years.
Her practice is an ongoing exploration of mark-making processes, the calligraphic line and the meaning, or non
meaning, ascribed to them. In recent years her work has shifted from a fascination with nature to concepts of
nostalgia, homesickness, memory, colour and shape.

Inspired by abstract expressionism, graffiti art, modernist
and minimalist art of the 20th Century, her current paintings are a celebration of the streets, people, music,
and community of her childhood and teens. She approaches each work as a palimpsest, creating multi-layered
assemblages of line, colour and form.

She grew up in London, on the working-class borders of Hackney and Islington. She first studied art at Chelsea
Art College before completing a degree in Art History and Literature at the University of Essex. In London,
working out of studios in Tottenham and Bermondsey, and screen printing at the London Print Studio, her work
included: large-scale nature drawings shown at the five-star Hempel Hotel; an installation ‘Banco Internacionale de
Sloganeers’ at the KLF’s The Foundry bar and art space; and ‘floral tributes’ for victims of war, which appeared at
roadsides as guerrilla art around the Square Mile.

Returning to Wivenhoe in 2011, she co-founded the small indie book publisher and art project Dunlin Press,
where as creative director she also designs the books’ cover artwork. She is a member of TOMA 24-26 cohort.

Wendy Fransella’s work

Returning to Colchester from London in 1999 Wendy Fransella attended Colchester School of Art as a mature
student, completing a Foundation Diploma and a BA(Hons) in Fine Art.

She has exhibited at the Hay Gallery, the Minories and Brick Lane showing a range of abstract paintings.
In 2007, Wendy worked with the Colchester Regeneration Office at the Hythe as Lead Artist on a 172 foot
heritage mural at King Edward Quay. This mural depicted the people of the Hythe past and present, she also
organised a number of community art workshops as part of this project.

More recently in 2022, she organised a series of Arts Council funded art workshops for vulnerable women,
working with CARA and Out House East and continues to host art workshops in painting, printing and
drawing for the local community.

Wendy’s work is gestural, abstract and expressive, working in acrylics, charcoal and ink on canvas and paper ‘to
make seen the unseen’ by exploring mark making and colour.