NellFace Everything

Celebrating three decades of creative practice, this survey exhibition sees the artist Nell transform the iconic Heide Modern building into a lively and deeply personal world inhabited by her extended family of characters and ghostly spirits. The former home of Heide founders John and Sunday Reed has been reimagined as a nest and sanctuary; a living, breathing environment that is a place of shelter, memory, and shared experience.

Incorporating found domestic objects alongside references to natural motifs from the Heide gardens—such as birds, snakes, apples, eggs and leaves—the exhibition features tapestries, paintings, sculptures and intimate works that allude to the Reeds’ vision of their house as a ‘gallery to be lived in’. Within this setting the artworks become charged with Nell’s reflections on subjects ranging from life cycles and animism to pop culture, rock ’n’ roll, religion and art history.

Face Everything also explores the opposition and integration of interior and exterior spaces, evoking architect David McGlashan’s intention for the building to blur the boundaries between house and landscape. The installation speaks to both the physical connection between Heide Modern and its natural environment, and to our psychological inner worlds, suggesting the constant negotiation between inside and outside, self and surroundings.