NELL

Nell has developed a unique visual language that traverses scale, medium and materiality. Regard- less of the outcome, her work explores oppositional thresholds and the fertile space that exist be- yond the binary: from intimate to immersive, found to fabricated, high to low culture, two-dimen- sions to three-dimensions, individual to collaborative, ancient to contemporary, sacred to profane. She uses recognisable motifs, including smiley faces, ghosts, eggs, teardrops, lightning bolts and crosses, as well as text taken from the world around us, to communicate universal themes of birth and death and everything in between. At the heart of Nell’s practice is an offering of connection and companionship; a reminder that we are not alone.

Across three decades, Nell’s work has been included in over 300 exhibitions in Australia and abroad. Significant recent solo exhibitions include: Nell x Colin McCahon: Through the Wall of Birth and Death, The Dowse Art Museum, Lower Hutt, NZ (2024), Old New Wave, Linden, Mel- bourne, VIC (2023) and in 2016, Shepparton Art Museum presented an eponymously titled sur- vey exhibition of Nell’s works, NE/LL. Group exhibitions include; RE-PAIR, Tennessee Triennial, Engine for Art, Democracy & Justice, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, US (2023), Know My Name: Australian Women Artists 1900 to Now, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (2021), No Place Like Home, MONA FOMA, K&D Warehouse, Hobart, TAS (2021), The National: New Australian Art, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (2017) and the Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art 2016: Magic Object, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide (2016). A monograph on her work, published by Thames and Hudson, was released in 2020.

Courtesy STATION