ELIES Gloria
1923-2012
The sculptures and paintings of Gloria Elies stand firmly on their own merit, so much so, that verbal elaboration and customary symbolic interpre tation are unnecessary.
Unquestionably, there must be an emotional kinship between artist and viewer. Those moved by the genius of Gloria Elies share her vision and imagination.
Gloria was born in 1923 in Toronto, Canada. She drew and worked in plasticine from early childhood, making images of the animals she loved. Her basic training in the visual arts occurred during her teens at Western Tech nology School in Toronto, which she attended from 1938 to 1942.
During a 1946 trip to New York City, she encountered museum reproductions for the first time. Gloria returned to Toronto and started making hydro-stone reproduc tions of three-dimensional work for the Royal Ontario Museum collection. Familiarizing herself with the museum collection, she learned how to cast in rubber latex, a skill she always practiced.
In 1948 she traveled to Mexico for the first time. It was a place of great beauty and simplicity. She “fell hopelessly in love” with the country.
In 1952-53 she hitchhiked, and youth hosteled throughout England, Western Europe, and French North Africa. She married and had two children, while she continued making reproductions, painting, and sculpting for five years in Nice, France.
In 1958 she returned to Mexico to live permanently. In her Mexican studio, her reproductions of Paleolithic goddesses, an cient Chinese tigers, miniature Egyptian scribes, and Pre-Colombian figurines sat side by side with models and casts of her own sculptures, establishing a lively dialogue between past and present, intimacy and monumentality.
For most of her life she juggled the competing roles of artist, mother, and businesswoman. “You might add, I’m a philosopher, a non-conformist, and a feminist,” she said.
