Elissa Nesheim is a watercolor artist working from her home studio in Minneapolis, MN. Growing up in western South Dakota on the edge of the Black Hills connected her soul to the natural world. Traveling by car and viewing the changing environments of South Dakota and Minnesota while visiting family, influenced her vision of bringing close what is far away.
After graduation with her Bachelor of Arts from Black Hills State University in Spearfish, SD she moved west to the land of Silicon Valley. Moving to California from SD and later CA to Minnesota, tied her view from the car window to the world beyond with threads embedded in memory of dreamlike, layered landscapes that meld together to form her current work.
Sylvan’s Aurora
Black Hills, 2024
Aurora Looking Up -
Black Hills, 2024
Artist Statement:
I create my watercolor landscapes from a meditative space of personal memory and images of my immediate landscape, then stitch it all together with my own imagination. The drying watercolor paint on the paper's textured surface reveal themselves to me as fields, mountains, meadows under skies filled with stormy clouds, colorful galaxies and sunny days. I let the paint, paper, and my heart show me where to add a tree or lake or expanse of flowers. There is an almost alchemical transmutation of the gathered images, memories and experiences of place into portals that transport you to a dream of a sublime reality.