Hey! I'm Dalee.
This adventure as an artist has always been a flowing one for me. There has never been any big dreams or goals, just an inherent urge to create and a constant (sometimes overwhelming) stream of ideas and inspirations. My natural love of art and plants in all their forms have been central to my entire life experience, woven into every moment and action, every feeling and thought.
Sometimes I stop and look around and wonder 'how did I even get here?' Here to this point where my printmaking and growing has become such a solid practice in my life and is now a beautiful little business and support system for my family.
I find myself looking back over the years, the decades, and I can see a creative continuum that has almost had its own energy, it's own life. I can see all that I create as having life outside of myself and having connection to more than just me. My work has always been an exploration into interconnection, so the processes of creation, and the materials I use to create with, are even more important to me than the arrival at the finished product. I like to think that the deeply connected journey of the making brings life to my work and stays with each piece as it travels out into other peoples homes, onto bodies and into spaces and lives.
I am a seeker and explorer of deep relationships, to place, to people, to process. I need them in my life to focus my wild brain and centre myself in meaning and purpose. I look at this point I have come too after years of honouring my natural inherent energy to create paired with lots of hard work as a mother, a homesteader and a grower. I see that I am now surrounded by space, plants, systems, people, materials and relationships that not only enable me to continue to create in these ways that I do, but that are all as much a part of what I create as I am. Like some kind of conduit of connection, this art is literally keeping my feet on the rich soil ground and my head in the wonder and awe of life and of the world.
What a gift it is to be able to share this trip all with you! I'm so grateful you are here feeling connection to my work and my story. I hope with all my heart that within these creations of mine you find your own inspirations to explore the threads of interconnection and relationship to the living growing world that makes this life on earth so rich and whole.
xxx Dalee
I am so grateful to the country that I live and create on.
Dalee's art practice
Artist Bio
Dalee Ella is an artist printmaker, illustrator and textile designer who works to create intricate lino prints for papers and fabrics. She handcrafts all her own paper from recycled waste products infused with homegrown and foraged botanicals and loves to work with Australian made organic cotton, linen and hemp fabrics.
Dalee's processes have evolved out of and reflect her land-based lifestyle. Featuring imagery that tells the stories and expresses the beauty of a slow paced, earth centered, handmade and homegrown reality.
For the past 11 years she has lived on a beautiful intentional community, on Bandjalang country in northern NSW Australia, with her husband and two boys where they continue to work together to build natural homes, educate outside of school and grow abundant food gardens.
Their deep connections to each other, the land they live on, the plants they grow and animals they care for are direct results of choosing to live a simple, DIY life, that allows the time flexibility and space to learn diverse skills and develop practices as artists and low impact contributors to the future.
It is directly from her earthy everyday experiences, living this chosen lifestyle, that Dalee draws most of her inspiration.
Dalee Ella holds a bachelor degree in fine art with a major in Printmaking from the Qld College of Art, Griffith University, Australia.
Shop Dalee's latest art offerings
Check out the first ever Dalee Ella wearable collection. Sit tight for her very exciting next wave of handmade paper prints to connect and amplify the wearables.
Can't wait to be sharing them with you!
