Nell’s multifaceted practice explores the thresholds and complexities of the contemporary human experience. Growing up in regional Australia, DIY projects and music on the radio were Nell’s lifeline; her connection to the world and the formation of her selfhood. From a distinctly Antipodean perspective, she draws upon art history, popular culture, rock’n’roll, religious texts, Buddhist spiritual teachings, chance and coincidence, to create works that are at once playful, insightful and poetic.

Nell has developed a unique visual language that traverses scale, medium and materiality. Regardless of the outcome, her work explores oppositional thresholds and the fertile space that exist beyond the binary: from intimate to immersive, found to fabricated, high to low culture, two-dimensions 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, Melbourne, VIC (2023) and in 2016, Shepparton Art Museum presented an eponymously titled survey 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 NameAustralian 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.

Dark is the night before day

Jon Cattapan, Adam Lee, Clare Milledge, Nell, Jason Phu, Heather B. Swann & Jake Walker

9 June – 18 June 2023

off-site

Aotearoa Art Fair

Nell, Paul Yore

2 March – 5 March 2023

art fair

What a Shadow Feels Like

Daniel Boyd, Dean Cross, Brent Harris, Nell, Heather B. Swann; curated by Ellinor Pelz

3 September – 8 October 2022

melbourne

NELL

The WAY Home

26 February – 26 March 2022

sydney

SPRING _INSTALL_02-11

Yellow Wallpaper

Kate Bohunnis, Sarah Contos, Narelle Desmond, Eugenia Lim, Nell, Jahnne Pasco-White, Heather B. Swann, Julia Trybala, Marian Tubbs, Michelle Ussher

21 August – 4 September 2021

melbourne

Web8

Ten year show

12 June – 10 July 2021

melbourne

NELL-I SAW the LIGHT-6-LOW

Nell

I SAW the LIGHT

8 May – 5 June 2021

melbourne

Photo 7-1-21, 10 47 48 am

Quarantine Art Fair

Jon Cattapan, Consuelo Cavaniglia, Adam Lee, Dane Lovett, Nell, Jonny Niesche, Tom Polo, Reko Rennie, Gareth Sansom, Michelle Ussher, Isadora Vaughan, Yevgeniya Baras

7 January – 10 January 2021

art fair

NELL BOOTH_007

Sydney Contemporary

Nell

10 September – 15 September 2019

art fair

S

Shantih shantih shantih


Jon Cattapan, Adam Lee, Sam Martin, Nell, Tomislav Nikolic, Michelle Ussher, and Jake Walker

16 June – 21 July 2018

melbourne

Nell

The Woken

22 July – 12 August 2017

melbourne

Spring 1883, Melbourne

Steve Carr, Nell, Tomislav Nikolic, André Piguet

17 August – 21 August 2016

art fair

Untitled-1

It's only castles burning

Hany Armanious, Celia Hempton, Mark Hilton, Patrick Lundberg,
 Moya McKenna, Nell, Séraphine Pick, David Shrigley, and Esther Stewart

30 January – 27 February 2016

melbourne

N2

Nell

THE FIRSTBORN IS DEAD

28 March – 18 April 2015

melbourne

Nell

Made in the Dark

15 August – 12 October 2013

melbourne

cov

Group show

Daniel Boyd , Nadine Christensen, Dane Lovett, Laith McGregor, Moya McKenna, Andrew McLeod, TV Moore, Nell, Séraphine Pick, Renee So and Paul Ryan

24 January – 23 February 2013

melbourne


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