Earlier Work

A Conversationoil on canvas, 66 x 60", 1986
A Conversation
oil on canvas, 66 x 60", 1986
Dissolutionoil on canvas, 72 x 80", 1989One of the series of eight, "The Swimmer's Progress""Berman's 'Floating' paintings...allude to heroic nudes of the Italian Renaissance - the sense of flesh as the mortal envelope we all bear and ultimately slip. Yet her depicted flesh is both ghoulish and strangely beautiful. Just as flesh, along with air and water, compose life's basic substances, so does paint become flesh in its color, texture, and wetness. Indeed, the painting has the vehemence of abstraction...While the paintings seem to be ordinary portrayals, the extraordinary is everywhere -- especially the handling of light, color, and tone juxtapositions."--Susie Kalil, Catalog Essay for "Ellen Berman: Recent Paintings," Art Museum of Southeast Texas, 1989.
Dissolution
oil on canvas, 72 x 80", 1989

One of the series of eight, "The Swimmer's Progress"
"Berman's 'Floating' paintings...allude to heroic nudes of the Italian Renaissance - the sense of flesh as the mortal envelope we all bear and ultimately slip. Yet her depicted flesh is both ghoulish and strangely beautiful. Just as flesh, along with air and water, compose life's basic substances, so does paint become flesh in its color, texture, and wetness. Indeed, the painting has the vehemence of abstraction...While the paintings seem to be ordinary portrayals, the extraordinary is everywhere -- especially the handling of light, color, and tone juxtapositions."
--Susie Kalil, Catalog Essay for "Ellen Berman: Recent Paintings," Art Museum of Southeast Texas, 1989.
Self-Portrait (Grief) #6oil on board, 22 x 22", 1992One of the series of fifteen "Self-Portraits (Grief)""As public as they are, these portraits cannot communicate Berman's grief...The paintings become, instead, subjectively motivated objects, separate from the person who made them. No longer simply an individual, Berman becomes the representation of emotional states. As such, the paintings touch us deeply, invite us into that world of grief and help us to imagine the pain. These paintings achieve a level on which their sensuality, emotion and intellect are miraculously matched. They ask important questions: is grief more real when it's projected or when it's hidden? Is it more easily purged by exposing it or by holding it private?"-- Elizabeth McBride, Review, Museum and Arts Magazine, March, 1993
Self-Portrait (Grief) #6
oil on board, 22 x 22", 1992

One of the series of fifteen "Self-Portraits (Grief)"
"As public as they are, these portraits cannot communicate Berman's grief...The paintings become, instead, subjectively motivated objects, separate from the person who made them. No longer simply an individual, Berman becomes the representation of emotional states. As such, the paintings touch us deeply, invite us into that world of grief and help us to imagine the pain. These paintings achieve a level on which their sensuality, emotion and intellect are miraculously matched. They ask important questions: is grief more real when it's projected or when it's hidden? Is it more easily purged by exposing it or by holding it private?"
-- Elizabeth McBride, Review, Museum and Arts Magazine, March, 1993
Doll Shirtoil on board, 12 x 12", 1995
Doll Shirt
oil on board, 12 x 12", 1995
Bing Cherriesoil on paper, 20 x 26", 2000"These paintings ask to be considered in the context of American art. Most obviously they relate to that American realist tendency found in Winslow Homer, Edward Hopper, and Fairfield Porter; above all, the flat, hard and clear outdoor light that is almost knife-like and makes the work tight, crisp, cool, and spacious. Like her predecessors, Berman understands the distinction between a propensity for high-style illustration on the one hand, and instinctive response to paint's material substance on the other. Significantly, Berman exposes a direct correspondence between palpable humanity and the tactility of paint."--Susie Kalil, catalog essay for "Ellen Berman: Recent Paintings," Art Museum of Southeast Texas, 1989.
Bing Cherries
oil on paper, 20 x 26", 2000

"These paintings ask to be considered in the context of American art. Most obviously they relate to that American realist tendency found in Winslow Homer, Edward Hopper, and Fairfield Porter; above all, the flat, hard and clear outdoor light that is almost knife-like and makes the work tight, crisp, cool, and spacious. Like her predecessors, Berman understands the distinction between a propensity for high-style illustration on the one hand, and instinctive response to paint's material substance on the other. Significantly, Berman exposes a direct correspondence between palpable humanity and the tactility of paint."
--Susie Kalil, catalog essay for "Ellen Berman: Recent Paintings," Art Museum of Southeast Texas, 1989.
Four Yellow Onionsoil on canvas, 30 x 30", 2002
Four Yellow Onions
oil on canvas, 30 x 30", 2002
Black Plums in White Bowloil on board, 36 x 40", 2000"Berman indulges in the description of earthenware bowls that contain large, glossy acorn squash or a handful of tomatillos, with their papery skin...The sensuality is undeniable, yet Berman's subtle manipulation of scale sets these works apart from mere description. A plum the size of a cabbage is a wonderful ploy to investigate texture and light. By appealing to the senses first, she opens the door to explore the relationships of objects in space."--Patricia Johnson, Review, Houston Chronicle, Nov. 10, 1998
Black Plums in White Bowl
oil on board, 36 x 40", 2000

"Berman indulges in the description of earthenware bowls that contain large, glossy acorn squash or a handful of tomatillos, with their papery skin...The sensuality is undeniable, yet Berman's subtle manipulation of scale sets these works apart from mere description. A plum the size of a cabbage is a wonderful ploy to investigate texture and light. By appealing to the senses first, she opens the door to explore the relationships of objects in space."
--Patricia Johnson, Review, Houston Chronicle, Nov. 10, 1998
Magnolia Bud and Leavesoil on canvas, 36 x 48", 2001
Magnolia Bud and Leaves
oil on canvas, 36 x 48", 2001
Eggplants in Bowloil on canvas, 30 x 30", 2001"If we allow portraits to be likenesses of subjects other than people, then Berman's still lifes are very much portraits, too. Clearly, Berman captures the likeness, say, of a turnip or a leek so wholly, that she reveals something we should have thought beyond capturing, something utterly like the subject as well as being utterly unlike it, as well."--Susie Kalil, Catalog Essay for "Ellen Berman: Recent Paintings," Art Museum of Southeast Texas, 1989.
Eggplants in Bowl
oil on canvas, 30 x 30", 2001

"If we allow portraits to be likenesses of subjects other than people, then Berman's still lifes are very much portraits, too. Clearly, Berman captures the likeness, say, of a turnip or a leek so wholly, that she reveals something we should have thought beyond capturing, something utterly like the subject as well as being utterly unlike it, as well."
--Susie Kalil, Catalog Essay for "Ellen Berman: Recent Paintings," Art Museum of Southeast Texas, 1989.
Donuts 2oil on canvas, 22 x 22", 2000
Donuts 2
oil on canvas, 22 x 22", 2000
Four Bowlsoil on canvas, 48 x 48", 2001
Four Bowls
oil on canvas, 48 x 48", 2001
Eggplantoil on board, 12 x 12", 2002“Behind Berman’s workday order of kitchen labor and food is an eroticism that manifests itself not only in the caressing of objects, the points at which they touch and graze each other, but more importantly, in her disruption of the world of mundane objects, in her making provisional all identities. Accordingly, Berman’s still lifes have an elegiac quality. The visceral, cut-open fig may suggest the theatrical nature of relationships, the cruelty and selfishness of the human heart, the inevitable blurring of love and pain…Berman’s paintings remind us that the processes of birth, growth, maturity, decay and death are part of the terms of an organic life cycle.”--Susie Kalil, essay for Double Take exhibition catalogue, 2001.
Eggplant
oil on board, 12 x 12", 2002

“Behind Berman’s workday order of kitchen labor and food is an eroticism that manifests itself not only in the caressing of objects, the points at which they touch and graze each other, but more importantly, in her disruption of the world of mundane objects, in her making provisional all identities. Accordingly, Berman’s still lifes have an elegiac quality. The visceral, cut-open fig may suggest the theatrical nature of relationships, the cruelty and selfishness of the human heart, the inevitable blurring of love and pain…Berman’s paintings remind us that the processes of birth, growth, maturity, decay and death are part of the terms of an organic life cycle.”
--Susie Kalil, essay for Double Take exhibition catalogue, 2001.
Red, White, and Green with Landscapeoil on board, 24 x 48", 2002
Red, White, and Green with Landscape
oil on board, 24 x 48", 2002
Onion Bundleoil on board, 24 x 24", 2007
Onion Bundle
oil on board, 24 x 24", 2007
Two Glass Bowls and Reflected Tablecloth Corneroil on board, 36 x 48", 2005“Striped cloth undulates across the space creating a magical landscape. The cherries on two tablecloths replace the actual fruit on the other canvases. Most significantly, flowers and leaves on a tablecloth inside the studio could easily have blown in from the trees pictured through the window outside.”--Clint Willour, Executive Director, Curator, Galveston Arts Center, “Distilling Life: The Paintings of Ellen Berman,” essay for Ellen Berman: Still Life Revisited, South Texas Institute for the Arts, Corpus Christi, Texas, 2004
Two Glass Bowls and Reflected Tablecloth Corner
oil on board, 36 x 48", 2005

“Striped cloth undulates across the space creating a magical landscape. The cherries on two tablecloths replace the actual fruit on the other canvases. Most significantly, flowers and leaves on a tablecloth inside the studio could easily have blown in from the trees pictured through the window outside.”
--Clint Willour, Executive Director, Curator, Galveston Arts Center, “Distilling Life: The Paintings of Ellen Berman,” essay for Ellen Berman: Still Life Revisited, South Texas Institute for the Arts, Corpus Christi, Texas, 2004
Pinwheeloil on board, 36 X 36", 2005
Pinwheel
oil on board, 36 X 36", 2005
White Dishes and Windowoil on board, 48 x 72", 2004“…the scale of the objects…is always larger than life. As a result we see the objects in a new light. At a larger scale they take on personas they never had in ‘reality.’ Relationships take on new meanings. Bowls and pitchers converse and cavort, eggplants and persimmons huddle, lemons mill about outside a family compound, pears pair-up, a Boteroesque pitcher pushes at the confines of the canvas.”--Clint Willour, Executive Director, Curator, Galveston Arts Center, “Distilling Life: The Paintings of Ellen Berman,” essay for Ellen Berman: Still Life Revisited, South Texas Institute for the Arts, Corpus Christi, Texas, 2004
White Dishes and Window
oil on board, 48 x 72", 2004

“…the scale of the objects…is always larger than life. As a result we see the objects in a new light. At a larger scale they take on personas they never had in ‘reality.’ Relationships take on new meanings. Bowls and pitchers converse and cavort, eggplants and persimmons huddle, lemons mill about outside a family compound, pears pair-up, a Boteroesque pitcher pushes at the confines of the canvas.”
--Clint Willour, Executive Director, Curator, Galveston Arts Center, “Distilling Life: The Paintings of Ellen Berman,” essay for Ellen Berman: Still Life Revisited, South Texas Institute for the Arts, Corpus Christi, Texas, 2004
Blue Tablecloth with Flowersoil on board, 48 x 72", 2004“When the stage is empty, what do we look at? Some of these paintings, with the absence of objects, actually read quite easily as landscapes. Among the wrinkled twisted fabric we find fascinating topographies, rumpled ravines, ribboned uplifts, and tectonic shifts, while the crisp creases offer a contrast, a chart-like grid structure or folds of a map. In Blue Tablecloth with Flowers, 2004 the organic decoration of some of these spreads provides further connection to nature and its patterns.”--Dana Friis-Hansen, Director, Austin Museum of Art, “Inside Ellen Berman’s Laboratory for Looking,” essay for exhibition brochure for Ellen Berman: Staged Settings, Beeville Art Museum, 2005
Blue Tablecloth with Flowers
oil on board, 48 x 72", 2004

“When the stage is empty, what do we look at? Some of these paintings, with the absence of objects, actually read quite easily as landscapes. Among the wrinkled twisted fabric we find fascinating topographies, rumpled ravines, ribboned uplifts, and tectonic shifts, while the crisp creases offer a contrast, a chart-like grid structure or folds of a map. In Blue Tablecloth with Flowers, 2004 the organic decoration of some of these spreads provides further connection to nature and its patterns.”
--Dana Friis-Hansen, Director, Austin Museum of Art, “Inside Ellen Berman’s Laboratory for Looking,” essay for exhibition brochure for Ellen Berman: Staged Settings, Beeville Art Museum, 2005
Flowered Tablecloths and Green Bowloil on board, 36 x 48", 2005
Flowered Tablecloths and Green Bowl
oil on board, 36 x 48", 2005
Circle of Flameoil on board, 48 X 48", 2005“Tipping up the visual field to emphasize the canvas’ flat surface, she manipulates her linens into a tempestuous vortex, an expressionistic field on which to let a visual drama play out. But Berman never lets go of her images, and continues to carefully render the solid outlines of the hefty hems or the play of solar, fluorescent and tungsten light onto the printed and plain fabrics, balancing representation with the issues of abstraction.”--Dana Friis-Hansen, Director, Austin Museum of Art, “Inside Ellen Berman’s Laboratory for Looking,” essay for Ellen Berman: Staged Settings, Beeville Art Museum, 2005
Circle of Flame
oil on board, 48 X 48", 2005

“Tipping up the visual field to emphasize the canvas’ flat surface, she manipulates her linens into a tempestuous vortex, an expressionistic field on which to let a visual drama play out. But Berman never lets go of her images, and continues to carefully render the solid outlines of the hefty hems or the play of solar, fluorescent and tungsten light onto the printed and plain fabrics, balancing representation with the issues of abstraction.”
--Dana Friis-Hansen, Director, Austin Museum of Art, “Inside Ellen Berman’s Laboratory for Looking,” essay for Ellen Berman: Staged Settings, Beeville Art Museum, 2005
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