Title: Ziryab the Oud Player
Year Completed: 2020
Size: 79.8x112.64cm
Technical: Mixed Media Collage and Photoshop

Description
Ziryab is rendered in life-size form. His image was drawn from imagination in response to an il-lustration project commissioned in 2020, in which Ziryab travels to foreign lands and meets a myriad of characters along the way. Playing the oud has a soothing influence and helps Ziryab to overcome each situation. In drawing and painting Ziryab, I tapped into my memories of living in the Middle East and academic background in Middle Eastern and African art and anthropology. His real-life drawing hangs on a wall in the hallway of my flat.

Unlike in other mediums, Eleanor’s art is primarily autobiographical, stemming from her emotions. Eleanor has always drawn instinctively; it is her default method of expression, and she makes art from a combination of observation and imagination. She believes each portrait is a method of communication of what it is to be human, and she draws portraits of the literary characters she creates to familiarise with them.

Eleanor's great communicative power comes from authenticity. Eleanor possesses the rare gift of getting straight to the people's hearts. This is possible thanks to the themes she selects, which are very close to reality. She tells stories that belong to everyone, universal experiences. Eleanor tells her stories as if she were writing in her personal illustrated diary, so her art is original, brilliant and with a very deep sensitivity. Eleanor takes the best from artistic experiences, drawing inspiration from literature, philosophy, popular and figurative culture that combines with a tendency for reflection and a great talent for the fine arts. What she creates is contemporary and has historical precedents in miniatures, albeit with completely different purposes. The Star is based on one of the cards of the tarot, symbolising renewed hope and inspiration, the artist therefore decides to reproduce a figure in the bathroom, a place where she sometimes finds epiphanies in her thoughts. The artist says she uses portraiture and self-portraiture to stimulate the emotions "I also draw on tarot images and esoteric philosophy to inspire visual work. For my work I use mixed media collages on drawing paper, combined with retouches and effects made in Photoshop, combining the with Photoshop, combining hand drawing with layers of digital". Ziryab is a character from her imaginary universe, travelling to foreign lands and meeting a myriad of characters along the way. Playing the oud has a calming influence and helps Ziryab to overcome any situation. "In drawing and painting Ziryab, I have drawn on my memories of living in the Middle East and my academic training in Middle Eastern art and anthropology and African anthropology'. Finally, 'The Crow is an allegorical portrait of my partner and husband-to-be. The artwork is part of a larger motif of wedding artwork made for the ceremony programme, in which the bride metamorphoses from a peacock and the groom from a crow. He is pictured here with her wings as still part of her suit. The works explore the gothic and fairy-tale aspects of allegorical love stories. The piece was drawn as part of a larger piece in which the crow is depicted beside the peacock, or the bride'.