Nell (artist)

Nell is an artist working across performance, installation, video, painting and sculpture. In 2013 she won the University of Queensland Self-Portrait Award. In 2017 she was inducted into the Maitland City Hall of Fame in the category of The Arts.

She is represented by Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery in Sydney, and STATION in Melbourne.

Nell lives and works in Sydney, Australia.

Biography

Nell was born in Maitland, New South Wales. Her partner is the celebrity chef Kylie Kwong.[1][2] She practices Buddhist philosophy.[3]

Nell studied under Lindy Lee at Sydney College of the Arts, the University of Sydney (1995), with Joan Jonas and John Baldessari at the University of California Los Angeles (1996) and with Annette Messager at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris (2006).

Career

Nell's work often engages with binaries – life and death, happiness and sadness, dark and light.[4][5] She draws on imagery from rock n roll, and employs a lexicon of repeated motifs in her work including smiley faces, lightening bolts, clouds, rain drops, suns, and faces.[6][7]

Nell's work has been included in over 200 exhibitions in Australia and abroad. In 1999,early in her exhibiting career, her work was selected for Primavera, an exhibition of notable Australian contemporary artists under 35 years old, at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney. She was also included in Primavera's 25th anniversary touring exhibition in 2016.[8]

Nell's first institutional exhibition was mounted at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 2001. Around this time she also staged exhibitions at Galerie Y-Burg, Vrieshuis Amerika, Amsterdam (1998), and with the Indian artist Neha Choksi at 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney (1999) and in Byculla, Mumbai (2000).

In 2011 Nell was commissioned by the Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart, to produce the exhibition Let There Be Robe.[9] Two performance works that took place in multiple iterations and venues were also commissioned, Chanting to Amps (2012) and It's a Long Way to the Top (2011, 2012).[10]

In 2012, Jean-Hubert Martin curated Nell's work into the exhibition Theatre of the World, MONA, Hobart, and in 2013 at La Maison Rouge, Paris.

Nell was included in the 2016 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art at the Art Gallery of South Australia with a major installation titled The Wake.[11] The Wake was subsequently acquired by the Art Gallery of South Australia.[12] The Wake is the subject of book, with text by Julie Ewington.[13] Also in 2016, Shepparton Art Museum hosted an eponymously titled survey exhibition of Nell's works.[14][15][16]

In 2017, Nell was commissioned by the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne to make an outdoor sculpture to be permanently installed in their sculpture garden. Her work was included in the inaugural The National, a biennale of New Australian Art, at the MCA, Sydney. A solo exhibition, WORDS + CROSSES, was held at Ramp Gallery, Waikato Institute of Technology, Hamilton New Zealand.[17]

In 2012 Nell staged her homecoming show, Home Town Girl Has Wet Dream at Maitland Regional Art Gallery.[18] In 2017 Nell was inducted into the Maitland City Hall of Fame in the category of The Arts alongside previous inductees John Bell AO OBE and Ruth Cracknell AM.[19][20][21]

Nell often works outside the gallery, staging performances and installations in a variety of settings. In 2014 she presented work at Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts, UK, and in 2015 at Performance Space, Sydney as part of their Day for Night festival of queer performance.[22]

Nell has collaborated with Australian fashion designers Romance Was Born. In 2014 the collaboration was exhibited at the National Gallery of Victoria, in 2011-12 released through the label as The Oracle collection.[23][24][25]This collection and collaboration was named ‘Masterpiece of Australian Fashion’ for the first decade of this century by The Monthly magazine.[26]

Awards and residencies

Nell has undertaken residencies at the British Academy of Arts in Rome (2003), in Beijing with Red Gate Gallery (2005), at the Australian National University, Canberra (2007) and Artspace Sydney (2016).

In 2002, Nell travelled to Ravenna, Italy, on The Freedman Foundation Travelling Scholarship for Emerging Artists. Since 2017, she has been a resident at the Carriageworks Clothing Store studios in Redfern, Sydney.

Nell won the 2013 University of Queensland Self-Portrait Award for a video performance work.[27][28][29]

In 2001 Nell won the People's Choice Award in the Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize. In 2005, 2011 and 2013 she was Finalist in the Blake Prize.

References

  1. ↑ "Kylie Kwong and nell: swapping your way to a great art collection". Sydney Morning Herald.
  2. ↑ "It takes a family: Kylie Kwong reveals her secret ingredients". Good Food.
  3. ↑ "Nell: artist, Apartment & Studio, Kings Cross & Elizabeth Bay". Freunde Von Fruenden.
  4. ↑ "Rock Chick artist loves meditation, zen and AC/DC". Sydney Morning Herald.
  5. ↑ "Nell at The National". Time Out Sydney.
  6. ↑ "Take it from Nell – it's a long way to the top if you wanna rocknroll". The Herald.
  7. ↑ "Australian artist Nell loves meditation, retreats and AC/DC". Vice Creators.
  8. ↑ "Cynthia Jackson looks back on 25 years of the Primavera exhibition, which celebrates her daughter's life". The Daily Telegraph.
  9. ↑ "MONA FOMA launch in Sydney". Special Events.
  10. ↑ "Let there be chant". ABC Radio National.
  11. ↑ "Review – 2016 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art". Sydney Morning Herald.
  12. ↑ "Adelaide Biennial breaks records, appoints 2018 curator, acquires new work". Adelaide Review.
  13. ↑ "Six-and-a-half questions with Nell". The Art Life.
  14. ↑ "Nell's survey show at SAM is a mash-up of everything she loves". Art Guide.
  15. ↑ "Highway to Nell".
  16. ↑ "Let there be rock". Shepparton News.
  17. ↑ "Standing Room Only". Radio NZ.
  18. ↑ "AC/DC, Buddhism and Art?". Maitland Mercury.
  19. ↑ "Maitland Hall of Fame". Maitland City Council.
  20. ↑ "Well known names join hall of fame". Maitland Mercury.
  21. ↑ "19 inducted into Hall of Fame". Hunter Independent.
  22. ↑ "Queering the days". RealTime.
  23. ↑ "Fashion and art find a fit". Sydney Morning Herald.
  24. ↑ "Romance Was Born". Harpers Bazaar.
  25. ↑ "Rock chick artist loves meditation, Zen and AC/DC". Sydney Morning Herald.
  26. ↑ "20 Australian Masterpieces since 2000". The Monthly.
  27. ↑ "Sydney artist Nell wins $50,000 in top national artists self-portrait prize". Art Almanac.
  28. ↑ "Artist Nell awarded $50,000 for UQ National Artists Selfie Prize". Brisbane Weekender.
  29. ↑ "Sydney artist Nell wins UQ national artists self-portrait prize for summer selfie short film". News.com.au.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.