Ellie Irons

Ellie Irons is an interdisciplinary artist based in current-day Troy, New York, where the Mahicannituck and Mohawk Rivers converge. She received an MFA from Hunter College and PhD from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute focused on ecosocial art. She is the Co-Director of NATURE Lab at the Sanctuary for Independent Media. Her book Feral Hues was published in 2023 by PS Hudson. Join us tonight as Irons leads us for a workshop and talks about her work at Saratoga Arts. Her talk and workshop will open an evening of thinking about our environment along with percussionist Curt Newton who will follow with a performance of his A Climate Meditation for Solo Drumset. Materials and music provided. See you there! 🌱 Tuesday, March 31, 2026 🌱 Improv Spaces presents Artist Ellie Irons & Percussionist Curt Newton Feral Hues Artist/Workshop + A Climate Meditation for Solo Drumset. At Saratoga Arts 320 Broadway, Saratoga Springs 7-9PM ET Tickets available now! For more information see link /event-6562743

Tuesday, March 31, 2026 🔥 Improv Spaces presents Artist Ellie Irons & Percussionist Curt Newton Feral Hues Artist/Workshop + A Climate Meditation for Solo Drumset. At Saratoga Arts 320 Broadway, Saratoga Springs 7-9PM ET Tickets available now! For more information see link /event-6562743 and QR code

Artist Ellie Irons (@elslaurel ) will be hosting a workshop at Blue Light Junction and we invite you to participate in this hands-on experience: creating and painting with watercolor paints from regionally-sourced wild and weedy plants. 🌱 Mark your Calendar! 🗓️March 12th, 2026, 6-8 pm @blue.lightjunction An artist talk and demo on making plant-based watercolor paints will be followed by an opportunity to experiment with the process in small groups. Responding to Ellie’s ongoing project Feral Hues on Estuarial Fill, throughout the workshop, we’ll focus on the natural-cultural stories of plants whose green habitats are heavily impacted by human activities, drawing on Ellie’s work along the Hudson/Mahichannituck River in current-day New York State, and participants’ own experiences in current-day Baltimore & beyond. Copies of the book Feral Hues: A Guide to Painting with Weeds will be available for purchase. Sponsored by @ecodesigncollective in collaboration with @ecliptaherbal (you must register to join. Link in the bio) Ellie Irons is an artist, scholar & educator living & working on Mohican land in current-day Troy, New York, USA. In December 2021, she completed a practice-based PhD at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Troy, NY), focused on forms of ecosocial art that cultivate plant-human solidarity. She is currently the Co-Director of NATURE Lab at the Sanctuary for Independent Media. Her most recent publication is the book Feral Hues: A Guide to Painting with Weeds (Publication Studio Hudson, 2023). #EcoDesign #PlantBasedWatercolors #Feral #NaturalColorPlants PaintingWithWeed

“What might it be like to know an individual or community of plants by a phytochemical signal, a visual pattern, or other form of identification that transcends human language?” 🌱 Ellie Irons @elslaurel reads aloud from her piece “A Few Feral Hues: Fall Berries for Winter Painting” in The New Farmer’s Almanac, Volume 7: Premonition. This guide to painting with plants is pulled from her book Feral Hues: A Guide to Painting with Weeds, published by @p.s.hudson . Ellie is an interdisciplinary artist and educator living on Mohican land in current-day Troy, New York. She works in a variety of media, from walks to WiFi to gardening, to explore how human and nonhuman lives intertwine with other earth systems.

Thank you Soil Factory @soilfactory_air ! I've been in a grounding, soothing bubble the last few days, making paint, meeting beautiful humans and plants (thanks Dan Torop and @amaturegrownup for hosting, @zcecilialu and @kathrynmhigh for the connection!); loved my @marshygarden_bzzzzz walk w/ @ashferlito & @ilsesmurdock , and later trips to air out mugwort & collect seeds, bound for #lawnlabtroy ). Getting a glimpse of a nascent Miyawaki forest, the meadow slope where flags marked out Landon Newton's @theabortionherbgarden , and herb processing for @oji.sda made me want to return, and I felt so many parallels with the work we do @mediasanctuary . In general this trip was about slowing down. I'm endeavoring to take this recharge back with me, from this Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫʼ/Cayuga land (current-day Ithaca)--where water flows north-north west into the great lakes--to the land I know as home (7 years now!) of current-day Troy, where the southern draining watershed of the Mahicannituck orients me. Feeling this bioregional shift of water drainage made me want to draw watersheds again. Maybe this winter will provide some space. In the meantime, I'm leaving Soil Factory with some nice quantities of common buckthorn / Rhamnus cathartica paint, which you can see in action this Saturday when we try adding plant-based paint to lime wash for our #NatureLabTroy Bring Your Own Brick workshop with @funstuffdesign @c._.e._.mori @rileystudy [#altext included for screen readers]

Hyperallergic Members are invited to join us on August 12 for a virtual conversation with two artists about the materiality of paint: Rina Banerjee (@rina.banerjee ) and Ellie Irons (@elslaurel ), who will delve into the particularities of working with different pigments and surfaces, the process and chemistry behind creating their own paint, and how they choose the right color. Moderated by Hrag Vartanian (@hragv ), this discussion will explore the evolving relationship between chemistry and color, from ancient pigment traditions to contemporary ecological practices. We’ll hear from the artists about the process of navigating the intersection of science, culture, and creativity in their work. Only active members can attend the discussion, so if you haven’t signed up yet, there’s still time to join! To access this event and support our independent journalism, you can become a member today at hyperallergic.com/membership. . . . Ellie Irons (photo Daniel Phiffer), Rina Banerjee (photo Guillaume Ziccarelli), Hrag Vartanian (photo Kevin J. Miyazaki) #RinaBanerjee #EllieIrons #Paint #Pigment #Color #Paintmaking

Yesterday was a good day to be in the streets. More to come. Thanks @flagsssday.troyny for building this annual tradition, this year “red: our inseparable fires” more needed than ever 💔💔🔥🔥❌❌🍉🍉5th photo courtesy @aeswist , 6th via @d13rdr3

This Friday - a free public philosophy event at Collard City Growers (3337 6th Ave in north Troy). We'll start with a garden work party (4-5pm) and then transition to a philosophical discussion on plants, personhood, and our relationship to the environment (5-7pm). Drop by anytime - FREE and OPEN to all! Please RSVP here for pizza: /event/are-plants-people/

#nextepochseedlibrary is part of the exhibition Stick Around for Joy at Evening Star Gallery curated by @ddorrrissss . We enjoyed creating a site specific installation for this perfect little cabinet! Here, NESL's deep time ceramic seed burial vessels hold the seeds of weedy, disturbance-loving species from Snake Hill, a site in Secaucus, NJ that was radically reshaped by over a century of human use—as the site of jails, asylums, and hospitals that left behind mass graves, and later by quarrying and highway construction that erased much of the original rock formation. These vessels were made with site-specific soil—one to be buried, one to be kept as an artifact—suggesting the possibility of new, exuberant growth in a distant future. This installation also includes seed packets available for the public to sign out, as well as informational materials about our site, previous sites, and the Next Epoch Seed Library's activities and ethos. Closing reception is Sunday June 29, 1-4pm.

Artists Ellie Irons and Anne Percoco describe their work on the “Next Epoch Seed Library,” part of the exhibition “Seeds: Containers of a World to Come.” 🌱 Unlike traditional seed banks, the NESL focuses on sharing seeds from urban weeds to promote public dissemination and preserve biodiversity. For this show, they created a site-specific library filled with seeds gathered from across the St. Louis region.    Watch the full video at the link in our bio. 🔗     “Seeds” is on view through July 28, 2025.   #KemperArtMuseum #WashU #SeedsExhibition

What futures lie within a seed? 🌱 Curators Meredith Malone and Svea Braeunert take us inside “Seeds: Containers of a World to Come”—a thought-provoking exhibition now on view at the Kemper Art Museum. Explore how ten contemporary artists investigate issues of fragility, preservation, and possibility through the lens of the seed. Don’t miss your chance to experience these dynamic artworks! ✨ #KemperArtMuseum #WashU #SeedsExhibition

Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum Seeds : Containers of a World to Come Feb 21 - July 28 , 2025 @washukemperartmuseum