Elaine Savoie

Elaine Savoie is a Hornby-born painter, writer and active farmer whose creative life is deeply rooted in the island. She lives and farms on land that has been in her family for many years, and that connection to the land, family and Hornby life runs through much of her work.

Growing up within Hornby’s rich community of artists and makers, Elaine was surrounded by creativity from an early age. Her own work, however, is unmistakably her own – playful, irreverent and unconventional. Drawing on family, faith, farming, nature and island life, she approaches her subjects with a directness that can be whimsical, questioning or provocative. Her work often plays with religious imagery and the traditions of her Catholic upbringing, reworking familiar symbols and ideas through her own distinctive perspective.

For Elaine, art and farming are closely connected. The land she works, the people and stories around her, and the particular character of Hornby all find their way into her creative practice. Alongside painting and drawing, she writes poetry and prose with the same independent and observant voice.

Elaine works from her studio on the property and shares her work in the informal, very Hornby ways that are part of island life – from her roadside stand and the Farmers Market to Hornby Arts Studio Tours, Christmas openings and long-weekend Indoor Markets through the winter. Her work is deeply local, unconventional and entirely her own.