Koplin Del Rio is pleased to welcome you to the Salon for a new installation by Seattle photographer Ellen Garvens. Titled Up in the Air, this exhibition offers a rare opportunity to step inside the artist's studio and witness a creative process that has largely remained unseen throughout her accomplished career.
Rather than presenting only finished photographs, Up in the Air reveals the evolution of an idea—from tentative experiments and constructed environments to the final image. The exhibition includes works developed across four distinct studio settings in recent years: a newly established home basement studio following her 2023 retirement as Professor of Art at the University of Washington; work created during Ellen's November–December 2025 visiting artist fellowship at Villa I Tatti, The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies just outside Florence, Italy; and two studio offerings in iconic Ballard where Ellen was drawn to capture the spectrum of natural light that deeply fuels her work.
Together these spaces became laboratories for exploration. Drawings, digital sketches, suspended objects, improvised materials, light, string, fabric, and photography converge into compositions that challenge gravity, perception, and our assumptions about what is physically possible.
As Ellen writes:
"This exhibit pulls back the curtain on parts of my process that usually stay hidden. Alongside the final images are photographs from earlier stages of each setup—moments where the work was still shifting and unresolved. Some of my favorite pieces are altered images with digitally drawn lines and shapes standing in for possible materials or objects. These sketches help me think through ideas and guide my next moves in the studio.
The work moves constantly between the physical and digital worlds and back again. It holds the changes and failures that happen along the way. Looking back, I sometimes wonder if I pushed things too far or missed a simpler version that already worked.
Photography is full of choices and revisions. I eventually find a way through by staying open to accidents, surprises, and the necessity of letting go of one idea for another. At its core, the work is driven by a desire to make photographs feel physically present—built from real objects with weight and fragility—while still behaving in ways that feel defiant, magical, and slightly impossible in the face of gravity and logic."
What continually draws me into Ellen's work are its many layers. Like peeling an onion, each photograph reveals another level of inquiry. The choreography of light, ordinary objects, and carefully constructed space resolves into images that are both formally elegant and delightfully mysterious.
There is also a sense of whimsy that feels deeply connected to childhood curiosity—the freedom to experiment simply to discover what might happen. As I spent time with these works, I found myself remembering afternoons as a crafty child, happily absorbed for hours with paper, string, tape, and whatever materials I could gather, inventing worlds without concern for the outcome. Ellen's photographs rekindle that spirit of play while offering a welcome respite from the complexities of adult life. They invite us to look more closely, to question what we see, and to delight in the unexpected.
As we welcome the summer season, it feels especially fitting to fill the Salon with work that celebrates imagination, experimentation, and wonder. I hope you'll stop by for a visit, linger with these extraordinary photographs, and perhaps rediscover a bit of your own curiosity along the way.
