Elsa Cornelissen – The art of merging passion and business

She eventually found her sweet-spot in Hartbeespoort after a super storm of life’s hard times and emotional challenges. She has two beautiful daughters that she carries in her heart in every way!

“I opened The Art Guest House almost as an extension of my art studio…. that is an extension of myself. This move fed my passion for art and people. Every person I meet is special and unique. They inspire my art in the most extraordinary way. I connect with their emotional journeys and carry it through to my work and the colours I use. I also paint my own life and emotions. I do find it difficult to look at it afterwards as it makes me feel exposed… but it liberates me at the same time!”

People who met Elsa know how much she loves colour. She is like an honest splash of colour in a grey world! She has a specific sense of style that paints a perfect bright picture of her eccentricity and emotional honesty. She sums her studio up in four words that are explanatory of how she experience life through art, “Art From The Heart”

“I put my heart and soul into every painting I do. My main medium is acrylic, but I also love experimenting with mixed media because the texture and dimension it gives makes it so interesting to pursue.” Elsa has had an affinity for colour since childhood.

When you enter the Art guest House for the first time it is wonderfully overwhelming, you can expect to be blown away by the experience. It could be described as sliding down a dark rabbit-hole and landing in a parallel universe bathed in an explosion of fine art and colour. A place that can only exist in one’s mind. A place where all the creative right-brained minds meet while the more analytical left-brained are dreaming of how to make the next dollar. While walking through the peaceful gardens filled with the sound of water flowing and birds chirping in the little secret corners and gathering nooks. It brings on a feeling that you may literally walk in on a secret meeting between nature and the art house inhabitants at any time.

Elsa is a self-confessed Art Junkie and can not see herself as anyone else but an artist. Although Elsa loves company, she treasures time alone. She feels that exploring her inner world gives depth to her work. This depth is clearly seen in her symbolic realism. When asked about the feature of feathers in her work, she reveals she is sharing part of her soul that may resonate with deep thinkers and with anyone who has lost someone close to them….

“Feathers have so much symbolism, they remind me that Angels are always with me. They connect me to my Creator, the lightness of my soul and the thin veil between our world and the spiritual realm. I find symbolism in all of nature. Everything has meaning, everything is connected, and every single action has a reaction.”

Meeting Elsa Cornelissen and sharing her bohemian space reminded me of the philosophical concept of Czechoslovakian/French writer Milan Kundra. He believed that the unbearable lightness of being means accepting a certain lack of ultimate meaning in life and living for momentary beauty. One’s choice to live in and appreciating momentary beauty may seem small within the larger reality. Such a person can not belong to the world, does not embrace worldly rules and things, but rather belongs to the wind. Such a soul will visit the earth to seek and explore the true Lightness of being.

Elsa is a testimony to the dream and possibility of merging one’s talents, soul, passion and business. She is the lightness of the feather in her work and her creativity eternally travels on the wings of the wind!

http://www.elsaarts.co.za/

083 344 1759