Ditte Ejlerskov

Ditte Ejlerskov (born 1982) is a Danish contemporary artist. She was born in Frederikshavn, Denmark, and lives and works in Denmark. In 2017 her official portrait of Helle Thorning-Schmidt at Christiansborg was positively received by local critics.[1][2][3]

Parts of Ejlerskovs artistic process consist of interaction with the Internet. Everything from written correspondence with email-scammers, paparazzi photographs downloaded from Google and contemporary music videos are brought into Ejlerskovs universe. With simultaneous disdain and fascination, Ejlerskov started to use Rihanna as a motif in her work. A few years ago Ejlerskov was drawn to Barbados, Rihanna’s home country, after an email correspondence with an Internet scammer. The scammer and Ejlerskov exchanged a series of emails, all of which was turned into a book and a film before she again started to focus on the painting. Ejlerskov's work investigate thematic and perceptual experiences pertaining to her generation, but also with references to post-colonial and post-feminist ideas. A large part of her work deals with contemporary pop-culture, where the purpose is to draw attention to what is happening in the intermediate positions, between the private and public space.[4]

The main tool in Ditte Ejlerskov's practice is media literacy. Most of Ejlerskov's work is founded on interactions with the Internet; written correspondences with email-scammers from exotic parts of the world, translations of trashy paparazzi photos into large scale abstract paintings or detailed medieval-looking copperplate etchings based on imagery from a contemporary music video. Her abstract and representational paintings analyse and explore the potential of painting as medium itself, as well as they are tools for interpreting our contemporary reality.[5][6][7][8]

Most of Ejlerskov's work has a feminist angle [9][10][11] and questions the space between the personal and the public; suggesting an individual experience within a stream of collective consciousness. The work "About: The Blank Pages" is a collaboration with EvaMarie Lindahl and it highlights Taschen Basic Art - a book series that consists of 95 books of artists's biographies, 5 of which are of women artists.[12][13][14][15][16]