meet the artist
Elaine Ford is an artist and ecologist whose work explores the sensory intelligence of the natural world through drawing, field expeditions and immersive storytelling.
Her practice investigates how humans perceive and connect with the living world - from microscopic biological processes to vast ecological systems. Moving between studio and field, she works with materials, data, moving image and immersive technologies to reveal unseen patterns in nature and awaken deeper sensory awareness of the environments we inhabit.
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 Scottish artist and ecologist whose practice explores nature’s rhythms, biological intelligence, and sensory perception.
Her practice moves between field and studio, drawing on expeditions to rainforests, mountain ranges, and marine environments. Working across drawing, installation, and immersive media, she uses both natural materials and ecological data to investigate how we perceive and relate to the living world.
Often working in collaboration with biological processes, her pieces are shaped by systems beyond her direct control, from slime mould growth and salt crystallisation to animal movement data and atmospheric forces. Time, chance, and the intelligence of living systems become active participants in the work
A central focus of her practice is the question of perception: how information exists beyond human senses, how other species experience the world, and how technology might extend our own ways of seeing, sensing and experiencing.
Informed by field expeditions and as a member of The Explorers Club, her work explores the relationship between sensory experience, environmental systems, and human awareness.
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, Fauna & Flora International, Elephants for Africa, Inspace Gallery and the Botswana Predator Trust.
Elaine is also the founder of Electrek Explorer,a venture using geospatial technology and local communities to reconnect people with nature’s most beautiful, inspiring and restorative places. Driven by the belief that we are all both explorers and creators, the project combines field-tested data, mapping technology, and storytelling to inspire deeper outdoor journeys and activate personal 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) and Tropical Biodiversity (Royal Botanic Gardens) she brings together sensory experience, environmental systems, and human connection. Her work has been exhibited across Europe in both physical 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.
