NELL

There’s a lot of shared space between Nell and me. Some of which includes a love for poetry, the pop music of Courtney Barnett, aneclectic range of podcasts, as well as a common interest in the work ofColin McCahon. As a New Zealander I find it is impossible to look at Nell’s paintings without thinking of him. Besides the factthat Nell is a self-confessed “major McCahon fan”, like McCahon she alsotransforms words into visual imagery by rendering exquisitelyconsidered typologies and fonts into paintings. Where McCahon used thebible and the words of local poets with whom he collaborated; Nell ‘spopular culture is a showcase of her deep knowledge of pop music and inthis instance, instead of the bible, she uses words from ancient anduniversal wisdoms such as St Francis of Assisi’s “Peace Prayer” and TheDiamond Sutra. Like many great artists Nell has a sharp and gathering eye and the confidence to reinterpret ideas and make themher own. Her interest in music is well established in her previouswork, especially her love for AC/DC. With this show Nell’s playlist isas wide as it is deep. She riffs off pop songs from artists as diverseas Marvin Gaye’s Sexual Healing, Carly Simon’s You’re so Vain, and songs from the Rocky Horror Picture Show, to more recent and obscure music by the likes of Lord Huron and ParquetCourts. Into this mix, she adds spiritual and philosophical blessingsand prayers. It would be easy for this mash-up to not work – for it tobe construed as profane or glib. However this is not the case. As withall her work it is respect and reverence for her subject matter, and aninvitation to the viewer to look deeper into the work that radiates. Whilst Nell cherry picks from the archives of art history and paints hergreatest hits, as an artist her alchemy is distinctly her own. She takespopular signs and symbols and plays with them. Nell turns shit intosmiles, she makes an egg out of death, her clouds are sunny. Like the artist herself, Nell’s work is imbued with energy, wit andintelligence. Her joy in life, in being fully present – mindful of alland everything in her orbit, living consciously, is reflected in thework she makes. In my work as Director of McCahon House Museum and Artists Residency, a mantra I regularly ask myself as wecontinue to develop the visitor experience at the Museum is, “wouldColin McCahon be ok with this?”. To use the sensibility of McCahon as abarometer reading to any ‘improvements’ we may wish to make. With”Blessings” my sense is that not only would McCahon respect Nell’schosen prayers and blessings; he’d also be amused and honoured to findher investigating a similar territory, asking familiar questions andusing an art practice to explore the space between the known and theunknown. Vivienne Stone January 2019 — Blessings is dedicated to Virginia Wilson. My deepest thanks to KK foreverything, Warwick Edgington for studio assistance and laughs, RodDenison of Jim Croft for the framing, Viv Stone Director of ColinMcCahon House Museum Trust & Artists’ Residency for THE words,Carriageworks for the Clothing Store Studios where ‘Blessings’ wasentirely made. And I’d especially like to thank all my studiocolleagues; Tony Albert, Tully Arnot, Mikala Dwyer, Samuel Hodge,Claudia Nicholson, Other Architects and Phaptawan Suwannakudt for theircompanionship on the journey of making art. - Nell — Across two decades, Nell’s work has been included in over 250 exhibitionsincluding a curated museum survey at Shepparton Art Museum (2016). Nellhas exhibited regularly at contemporary, university, regional andstate galleries in Australia. Selected recent exhibitions include The National: New Australian Art, Museum of Contemporary Art (2017); Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, Art Gallery of South Australia (2016); WORDS + CROSSES, Waikato Institute of Technology, New Zealand (2016); BLACK ‘n’ WHITE at PS Project Space, Amsterdam (2015) and Let There Be Robe, MONA FOMA, Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart (2012). Nell has collaborated with Romance Was Born at the National Gallery of Victoria (2014) and on The Oracle collection (2011–12). This collection and collaboration was named’Masterpiece of Australian Fashion’ for the first decade of this centuryby The Monthly magazine. Nell studied at Sydney College of the Arts, Sydney, The University of California, Los Angeles and ÉcoleNationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris and has undertaken residencesin Beijing and Rome. Nell is a 2018 Carriageworks Studio Artist and iscurrently working on a major public artwork in collaboration with CaveUrban entiled Eveleigh Tree House. Commissioned by Carriageworks and Mirvac, Eveleigh Tree House is due for completion in April 2019.