Elloissa Mata: Immortalizing People One Canvas At A Time

Elloissa Mata first found her love for art through the coloring books in bookstores and the biggest crayola set her mom bought her. She was 7 then and by the time she reached middle grade, she ventured into drawing anime, which after years of it, she realized it just wasn’t for her.

This Fine Arts student majoring in Painting from University of Sto. Tomas’s subjects are people, inspired from what else, but people and her everyday life.

“I draw inspiration from strangers. I usually look at passers-by everywhere I go and imagine what they’re into. I draw inspiration from my everyday life. May it be from the news, movies I watch, or the people I talk to. I always find that one inspiration from everything I do from day to day basis.”

But Elloissa doesn’t just draw, illustrate or paint for the sake of doing so – she does it to immortalize people. She got that idea 7 years ago, while watching Cash Back.

“The main character in it has inspired me to start doing portraits. I thought, ‘Oh, I wanna be able to immortalize people like that.’ and that’s how it began.”

And she immortalizes people with styles varying from impressionism to realism through her main medium, oil, which she believes helps in “immortalizing human features, flaws and all through her artistic output”.

Being a self-taught artist, she never really liked art school (but still, she has that to thank for some of the things she has learnt). For her, how traditional art is taught shouldn’t be about assigning plates of a particular style and expecting people to do them out of nowhere but by being taught more rigorously.

Part of being an artist is having so many fellow artists around you and one of the ways to grow is not to be intimidated by the other artists – this shows in how Elloisa sees other artists and her growth as one. For her, if she wants to do something, she just does it. The various traditional artists in the Philippines are mere inspiration – a positive thing for the country, showing that Filipinos have a lot of talent and that the art industry continues to flourish.

Elloissa’s art comes from a passion and love for it, whether she’s doing a commission or a personal work. She believes that the belief an artist has for herself must come within because without it, external forces have this way of discouraging you and your passion.

Her art and who she is as an artist all comes from a strong and genuine love for her passion, art itself and most importantly, people. Their human forms and all the stories behind it, all immortalized and celebrated on her canvas.

Elloissa’s art is definitely for anyone, made to be seen by everyone. You can see her art on her Behance and you can follow her on Instagram here.