About

Elke Ott is an oil painter based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Born in New York City and raised between New York and Zurich, Switzerland, Elke Ott is a graduate of the University of Michigan’s Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design.

Although every painting begins with a flower, the work is ultimately about people. Elke uses flowers as portraits to explore aging, mortality, family, memory, and the ways our relationships with one another change over the course of a lifetime. She is especially interested in how quickly we associate visible signs of aging with decline, whether it is a flower with wilting petals or a person growing older.

Flowers move through the same life cycle that we do, only much more quickly. They bloom, change, age, and eventually die, making them a powerful means of reflecting on the human experience. Some flowers lose their form almost immediately, while others hold onto it. Some fade quietly, while others become even more vibrant with age. Those differences reflect people's individuality and challenge the assumptions we make about what it means to grow older.

Through these paintings, Elke invites viewers to look beyond the first signs of change and reconsider how we perceive aging, beauty, and mortality. Rather than seeing later stages of life as a loss of value, her work asks us to recognize the life, individuality, and beauty that remain present until the very end.