Meet the artist
Elaine Ford is a Scottish artist and ecologist whose work explores the living intelligence of nature. Working across drawing, installation, immersive film, VR, and geospatial technology, her practice grows from curiosity, experimentation, and discovery. From stormy Scottish coastlines to ancient rainforests, Elaine creates art that blurs the boundaries between science, ecology, and play - inviting us to reconnect with the natural world, and with our own creativity as a part of nature.
why I create
I make art to feel alive, more connected to this wild, breathing planet, and to the parts of ourselves we've learned to tune out. My practice isn't planned; it's intuitive. It begins with questions I don't yet know how to answer, and often ends in forms that feel more like discoveries than decisions.
Whether I'm drawing by a stormy Scottish sea, filming with 360 VR cameras in an ancient rainforest, or working with glass, dandelions, salt, and slime mould, I'm captivated by what's hidden, elemental, or emergent. My work lives somewhere between ecology, perception, and presence, a meeting point of art, science, and something wilder. It explores our connection with nature, the intelligence of other species, and our shared responsibility for the living world, inviting us to truly feel our own nature as an inseparable part of it.
For me, art is true freedom in exploration and discovery. It's a practice of listening. A way of waking up. I hope my work invites you to sense, to question, and to rediscover the wild intelligence that lives both in nature - and in you.
Artist Biography
Elaine Ford is a contemporary Scottish artist and ecologist whose practice explores nature’s rhythms, biological intelligence, and sensory perception. Blending drawing, installation, immersive tech, natural materials, and sensory data drawn from Earth’s own systems, her work investigates how we relate to the living world and our perception within it.
Her practice often co-creates with biological processes - from slime mould and salt crystal growth to animal migration data and radar echoes - allowing time, chance, and the intelligence of living systems to shape the art itself.
Informed by expeditions to tropical rainforests, remote mountain ranges, and marine habitats, Elaine’s work invites multisensory connection and embodied ecological awareness. A central fascination is how information extends beyond human senses, how other animals and plants perceive the world, and how technology might extend our own perception.
Through Planet Rewild, Elaine pioneers immersive 360° filmmaking initiatives that transport audiences into wild, often-inaccessible environments. She fuses storytelling with ecological intelligence to reconnect people with the living world. Her work has been supported by BirdLife International, the Jane Goodall Institute, RSPB, Elephants for Africa, and the Botswana Predator Trust.
Elaine is also the founder of Electrek Explorer, a venture using geospatial technology to reconnect people with nature’s most beautiful, adventurous and restorative places. Driven by the belief that we are all both explorers and creators, the platform curates nature-rich POIs to inspire deeper outdoor experiences and activate our own pathways back to wildness
With a background in both Fine Art (Glasgow School of Art, University of Cumbria, Edinburgh College of Art) and Biology with Ecology (University of Edinburgh), she brings together sensory experience, environmental systems, and human connection. Her installations and works have been exhibited across Europe in galleries and digital spaces,
Her work has also led to creative collaborations with outdoor brands like Arc'teryx, North Face, EllisBrigham, Jottnar, Scott Sport and Jaguar Land Rover, who support her fieldwork and expeditions.
Earlier in her career, she also worked as an art tutor for RNIB, designing inclusive workshops for visually impaired artists, an experience that continues to shape her belief that art and nature should be accessible to all.
You can explore Elaine’s creative process here, and selected works can be viewed here.
