Harm Joy

Ellie Thompson is an artist currently practicing in the South-West. Since graduating from The Ruskin School of Art in 2022, Ellie has exhibited a host of hapless characters across Oxford, London, Bath, Bristol, Rugby and Corsham.

Thompson’s interest in schadenfreude (the joy derived from another’s misfortune), anatomy and a cartoonish sense of humour informs each of her soft sculptures. Her puppet-like characters are at once extinct and alive, forever stuck in a sticky situation.

Harm Joy features a cast of perpetually wretched skeletons, all made out of felt fabric and created by Thompson over the last year. Though each character is motionless, they are animated by their all-seeing yet unknowing eyes.