CONTINUUM 3: uncertainties above & below | Heather Ellyard

Heather Ellyard, Somebody’s Homeland (detail) 2013, plaster, blackboard, 135 x variable width cm, photograph by Mark Ashkanasy

At the heart of Heather Ellyard’s artwork is an artist’s search for meaning, now, in our time, with a mature strength, refined purpose and broad vision.

Heather states about her work: My work is an inclusive gathering-in of what I sense out there where the world wobbles, shifts, despairs and tries to renew itself, in pieces. 

I use these findings in a condensed, metaphoric, associative way, like the poem. Meanings are layered and sometimes fragmented, waiting to settle. 

I’ve reached a place in my life where there are no stops, only pauses, in my search for meaning, with all of its sorrows and bling, with its wonders, ordeals and near tipping points. 

For a long time I have asked myself whether and how art matters in an atmosphere of global imbalance, violence and suffering. The only answer I know, for me, is not that beauty counts, but that paying attention, caring, being true to a language-of-meaning counts, and beauty may be a by-product of that process. And poems may rise up. This is why I go on and on making art.

 This exhibition is dedicated to the memory of Emmanuel and Etta Hirsh.

Heather Ellyard is represented by Janet Clayton Gallery.

26 September – 29 November 2015