Elisabeth Ladwig, a New Paltz-based photographer and collage artist, has crafted a remarkable body of work centered around nature. Her pieces are often set outdoors, serving as reminders of our lost connection with the natural world. In her digital photographic collages, she weaves stories from the mundane objects around her. Discover the Magic within Elisabeth Ladwig's Artistic Creations
Starpolish: A Celestial Fusion
Most of Ladwig's works are centered around nature and all of her pieces are set completely or partially outdoors, because they’re reminders of that connection. We’ve lost a lot of that over the decades,” says Elisabeth Ladwig. In Starpolish, “the actual five-pointed stars are origami stars that she folded and hung from the ceiling by fishing line. Then she swayed them and took picture after picture. The idea for this composition came to her from Shel Silverstein’s “Somebody Has To.” The poem offers a plea for an impossible goal.Somebody has to polish the stars,They’re looking a little bit dull.Somebody has to go polish the stars,For the eagles and starlings and gullsHave all been complaining they’re Tarnished and worn.To create her magical realist images, Ladwig works from photographs she’s taken of the objects and animals around her. She then digitally blends the photo composites in Photoshop for a contiguous scene. For instance: after seeing her late father-in-law’s fire escape ladder, she knew she had to incorporate it into her vision for Starpolish.In almost all of Ladwig’s images, you can spot woodland animals, birds in flights, and flowers or fungi. In her image Dryad of Kinship, the natural elements appear in the clothing. “I was walking through the woods with my husband on a hike, and I happened to walk by this tree and it was covered in turkey tail fungus on the trunk and I just saw a dress,” she says.
Her Favorite Things: A Feminine Fairytale
Her work has a mystical, fantasy look to it. The dream-like images all portray women in a scene of divine nature. Contemporary artists like Catrin Welz-Stein and Brooke Shaden have inspired Ladwig’s feminine-centered fairytales.The idea of refreshing friendships and forming deeper connections in life drove Ladwig to create Starpolish. She hosted “starpolish parties.” “It was an evening full of exercises for meditation and introspection and magic,” Ladwig says.With Starpolish, as with all of her images, interpretation is up to the viewer. Ladwig poses for all her work, yet you can never make out facial features or any sort of identity to the subject. “I want the viewer to be able to decide for themselves. The viewer is just as much a writer of those stories as I am,” she says.Ladwig’s work will be exhibited as part of the Mohonk Mountain House Art Fair from December 10 through 12, open to overnight guests and day guests with a reservation that allows for house access.Portfolio: Elisabethonearth.com
