Artist Biography

Ella Svensson was born in Essex and currently resides in Brighton as a portrait photographer. She is undergoing her third year on the BA(Hons) Photography course at the University of Brighton. Her practice combines tactile imagery with topics that relate to her own life experiences. She delves into the identities of people in her local community and their relation to social and environmental issues that she explores. Svensson draws upon her past experiences as a developing photographer to create bodies of work relating to topics that affect people in their everyday lives. 

Svensson’s interest in photography began in 2018 while she was attending high school in Michigan. She later attended Oakland Community College in 2019, in which she began developing her skills in digital documentary photography and the use of analogue photography. During her creative foundation course, she also explored drawing and ceramic subjects, which subsequently inspired her to integrate physical aspects into her future photographic work. Around the same time Svensson also started executing some freelance photography work, expanding on not only technical abilities but also the expertise of directing and interacting with the subjects of the images. She further improved on these skills when working as a portrait photographer for JCPenney/Shutterfly in 2021.

During her time at the University of Brighton, Svensson was able to learn new photographic processes and develop larger bodies of work. In her second year, she displayed her work ‘Distressed’ (2021/22) at the 2022 exhibition ‘Indagation’, along with fellow University of Brighton photography and moving image artists. She assisted on the installation of the exhibition, specifically her own series depicting manipulated black and white film negatives. In 2023, Svensson exhibited her series 'Sonder' (2023) at the Brighton University BA Graduate Summer Show, and at Free Range Exhibition in London for recent graduates.

In her most recent series, Svensson explores the relationship between tangible items and their importance to an individual. Following the theme of loss, the series delves into each subject’s rich connection to objects from lost loved ones. Documented in a book, the series explores multiple different stories and objects belonging to a variety of people.