Ellen Nolan
Hollywood Palm
Hollywood Palm is a series of collaborative works with silkscreen artist Kate Gibb exploring the iconic image of the Palm Tree; symbolic of glamour and the exotic in Hollywood, the ecology of which is embedded into the cultural and visual representation of Hollywood as place.
These prints have been created as part of the research project The Nita Harvey Archive: Remapping Femininity, Experience And Objectification In The 1930s Hollywood Star System. Drawing from the Nita Harvey archive (London,1928-38) and using feminist film/photographic theory to underpin my approach, I re-map the archive to create an innovative counter-hegemonic discourse about queer femininity, experience, and objectification in 1930s Hollywood, arguing for the significance of this hidden history.
Biography
Ellen Nolan is a Senior Photography Lecturer at UCA, Rochester and a PhD candidate at the University of Westminster. She holds a BA in Photography from Nottingham Trent University and an MFA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths, University of London. She has worked as a successful fashion and portrait photographer and contributor to magazines such as British Vogue, i-D and The Sunday Telegraph Magazine, and has shot major fashion campaigns for Dries Van Noten, Levis, Nike and Eley Kishimoto. She has also directed pop videos and shot album covers. Her works have been exhibited internationally at Arles Festival, France, The Photographers Gallery, London and The National Portrait Gallery, London, where her work is part of their National Collection. Nolan’s research focuses on aspects of the representation and performativity in commercial and domestic family archive. Her work considers the use of photography as a means of exploring the act of representation as a meditation on both photography and performance.