Elsa Thorp & Amaury Grisel

Elsa Thorp:

Born 1985, Bastia, Corsica, France.

From Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland, Aotearoa/New Zealand

Elsa Thorp holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland. After completing her degree in 2004 she took her cameras and interest in black & white analogue photography to Berlin representing herself through photographs of nature. She lived in Berlin for 7 years exhibiting in Italy, Germany, The Netherlands, New Zealand, and Greece. She relocated to Melbourne in 2016.

Her life/art practice for 20+ years is about sharing her connection to nature through photography, botanical sculpture, collaborations with photographers situating her body in landscapes, life modelling and nature art workshops. She immerses herself in botanical materials in a creative process that blurs the distinction between the forms of the plants and the work of the artist. The hunt for unusual materials gives her sculptural work a temporal quality, as its ultimate configuration cannot be known until the very last minute.

The bond between nature, the exotic, and the calming properties of the aesthetic arrangement of the natural have become key themes in her art whereby she reconfigures local flora into idealised compositional forms. Through workshops, her art practice includes sharing the therapeutic benefits of creating art with organic materials. In doing so, her works invite us to question what constitutes nature — and whether we should consider ourselves part of it — and art’s relationship to it.

Thorp has participated as artist in residence in Beziers, France (2024), Tristinka Beach, Greece (2024), The Pavilion, Fitzroy Gardens (2021) and Berlin, Germany (2012), crafting sculptures with naturally dried and fresh seasonal materials.

Thorp is passionate about supporting all things local. She values her relationships with local farmers and growers where she sources seasonal materials either direct from farms or local markets, plus a bit of foraging.

Elsa is currently an artist in residence at Carlisle Street Arts Space for Summer Artist Incubator 2026–2027.