Elena Elias is a multidisciplinary visual artist and jeweller currently based close to the Birrarung//Yarra River just outside of Naarm (Melbourne). Having graduated from the National Art School, majoring in Sculpture, she moved to Rome, undertaking a year long apprenticeship with a jeweller and artist in the heart of the ancient city, before returning to Australia to continue her practice. 

Her jewellery and art act as a form of connection and documentation for her various cultural identities. They are made as physical embodiments of stories - drawing on personal and ancient mythology, archetypes, poetry, and the rich landscapes around her - to find visual expressions of shared human rhythms, and the individual stories that separate them. 

Each jewel is hand sculpted using ancient lost wax methods that have been employed for thousands of years. Her jewels are not made as decorative ornamentation, but instead act as talismans to protect and guide the wearer for various purposes - be they ancestral spirit studs whispering sage advice in listening ears, or sapphire eyes to ward off evil.

The inks that she uses to illustrate her ethereal world are all made in her studio from sourced and foraged natural materials, often undergoing trips to local waterfalls, oceans or rivers for the water used. The pigments collected include charcoal from bonfires, local red dirt, found copper pieces and coins, rusted nails, wild plants and various forest lichens and mosses.

Amidst a world consumed by the digital image, the process of foraging for found materials and submergence in the natural landscape provides an alternative sanctuary. Like her jewels, her art aims to constantly open the doorways between our physical reality and one that hovers close by - both here and elsewhere, it is at once strange and familiar, constant and ancient.