Ellen Akimoto born in 1988 in Westlake Village, California, USA, lives and works in Leipzig,
Germany. Her work predominantly takes the form of figurative painting which seeks to
depict complexity and ambiguity in our surroundings and social selves. Skewed perspective, stylistic mixing and a tension between the convincing and the disruptive are utilized to create uncanny spaces, where forms are generated through painterly gesture and digital collage. The resulting images are fragments of worlds that are full of contradiction, that allude to other possibilities. Akimoto earned her BFA from the California State University Chico, during which she spent a year studying at the Mainz Academy of Arts in Germany. She went on to complete a post-graduate Meisterschüler degree at the Academy of Fine Arts in Leipzig, funded by a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service, DAAD. She has received grants from the Cultural Foundation of Saxony and the Elizabeth GreenshieldsFoundation and her work has been acquired by the Dresden Public Art Collection. Most recently she was a visual arts fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts.