David Reed Elliott Oxfordshire, United Kingdom

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I am a multidisciplinary artist based in Oxfordshire, UK. Working across painting, assemblage and word-based art, I work with layered acrylic and oil paint on canvas, alongside site-specific walking and drawing practices leading to assemblages constructed of found objects and spontaneous poetry.

My practice is deeply informed by my background in art psychotherapy, with themes of identity, memory, and the interplay of the conscious and unconscious, often with reference to mythic archetypes and meaning-making . During 2022-3, I worked on a project, 30 Oaks – 30 Silver, during which I revisit seven locations across the UK where I had lived over three decades, planting oak saplings and burying silver coins as symbolic acts of reflection and renewal. These journeys generated sketches, totemic assemblages and mixed-media works exploring contrition, trauma and transformation. In 2025, I completed an MFA with Falmouth University with a solo show and workshop in central Oxford, followed later in the year by a four-week artist residency and group show. My practice often begins with site-specific walking, attending to the landscape and environment and the memories, feelings, thoughts and emotions they evoke through personal encounters. I record my research through photography, sketches and annotations, sound-recording, collecting found objects and mapping the routes walked. Returning to the studio I spend time reflecting, sifting, refining ideas, developing spontaneous poetry and making large, mixed media works on paper and canvas, which blend abstract expressionist marks with figurative landscape. My work continues to evolve.