David Ellingsen is a photo-based artist making work that speaks to the relationship between humans and the natural world. David works predominantly in long-term projects with a focus on forests, biodiversity and climate. 

Most of David’s photographs explore issues of forest, biodiversity, and climate – subjects which, to say the least in these times, challenge one’s peace of mind. The images in The Silent Sea collections, (some of which are featured at gallery at Wilson & Co.) are created alongside that work, the process returning David to earlier days at the shore, a time of relative innocence, providing him a welcome sense of balance with the more difficult aspects of his overall photographic practice. 

The Silent Sea collections emerged in 2000 with the first photograph made at the southern tip of Cortes Island in British Columbia, Canada. David was raised on the island, on a small organic fruit farm bounded by forest and sea. Still living nearby in Victoria, the Pacific Northwest has remained at the heart of his practice – the land, sea, and sky weaving their endless story of interconnection.

These photographs often employ an in-camera, “long-exposure” technique that builds seconds and minutes into a single photograph. This tranquil process captures and distills time, recalling the senses that can awaken within us on the edge of the wild.