Ella Rochelle-Lawton was born and raised in San Francisco. Inspired by her surrounding artistic communities, street art culture, and her experiences with housing instability, Lawton explores how creatives reclaim space.
"Through my work, I consider who has claim and custody of spaces facing gentrification and the endurance of urban and natural environments. Overlapping collage and repetitions serve to expand understanding of how accumulative imagery in street art and social media demand space. Through mixed media and installation choices, I create texture and color contrast between technological and organic shape to meld scenes of nostalgic memory with modern reality.
I do this to share my two perceptions of San Francisco:
1.) a fantasy landscape formed by fond memories of people and businesses, now displaced.
2.) a hellscape in which it is impossible to ignore wealth disparity and the disappearance of community."
Rochelle-Lawton graduated with a Bachelors in Fine Art from UC Berkeley and received a certificate of design from UC Berkeley's Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation in 2022. Prior to studying at UC Berkeley, Lawton developed her graphic design skills at the Academy of Art University.
Awards, Grants, Scholarship
2022 UC Berkeley Certificate of Excellence in the discipline of Video Art
2022 UC Berkeley Humanist at Work Grant
2022 UC Berkeley SPOT award
2022 Gilman Scholarship
2022 UCEAP Global Scholarship
2022 UC Berkeley Honors Studio
2022 MacGyver Foundation Design Competition
2021 Fiat Lux Research Grant, UC Berkeley
2018 Fiat Lux Scholarship UC Berkeley
2018 Kalmanovitz Charitable Foundation Scholarship, California College of the Arts
2018 Mel Hanson Memorial Alumni Award
2018 Ezra Keats Competition, 1st place, Jewish Contemporary Museum
Exhibitions
2022 Many Big Unusual Things, Berkeley Art Practice Pop-up Exhibition, Berkeley, CA
2022 Embodied Entropy, Worthryder Gallery, Berkeley, CA
2022 UCB Honors Open Studios Exhibition, Platform Art Space Berkeley, CA
2022 Proof, Worthryder Gallery, Berkeley, CA
2022 Mind the Gap, Murio’s Trophy Room, San Francisco, CA
2021 Coalescence, Worthryder Gallery, Berkeley, CA
2018 Rereimagined Worthryder Gallery, Berkeley, CA
2018 Collection, Jewish Contemporary Museum of San Francisco, CA
2016 Student collective show, Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, CA
Collaborative Projects
2021 Innovative Design at Berkeley, Blue Team ( design in collaboration for clients )
2018 Disposable Realestate, Berkeley, CA, ( instillation in collaboration )
2019 Vandalism, Berkeley, CA (design in collaboration)
Lawton's work has been exhibited across Bay Area museums and galleries and exists within various private collections. Her series, inspired by her experience with housing instability, “Collection”, won the Ezra Keats award and was exhibited at the Jewish Contemporary Museum and The Worth Ryder Art Gallery. Additionally, she has exhibited work in multiple student collectives at the San Francisco Asian Art museum. Lawton's work for Human Trafficking Awareness earned a Certificate of Honor from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.
Recently, Lawton was selected to receive California College of the Art’s Kalmanovitz scholarship along with various awards from the San Francisco Elk’s Lodge for paint and charcoal works. More recently, Lawton received the Mel Hanson Memorial Award and UC Berkeley's Fiat Lux Scholarship for her undergraduate career, the Fiat Lux Research grant for her instillation, “Acclaimed” (exhibited at The Worth Ryder Art Gallery as part of the shared show: Coalescence), and the MacGyver foundation Design Competition award (distributed in two parts; to the artist and her chosen charity: New Story which provides housing to low income communities around the world).
In 2022, Lawton was awarded the UC Berkeley SPOT award, a Certificate in Excellence in Video Art from UC Berkeley Art Practice, UCB’s Humanist at Work grant, and a position within UC Berkeley’s Art Honors studio cohort. Most recently, Lawton received the UCEAP Global scholarship for creative studies at Queen Mary’s University London and the Benjamin Gilman International scholarship for her research project on affordable housing efforts for London low income artists.