Accessible Arts / arts + disability NSW

Monica Ellis, Artist (right) and Monika Diak,
Assistant Artist: Pieces of Me, 2008. Monica Ellis’ collection of etchings on paper and silks are inspired by travelling through Europe, where she discovered a connection to the explicit and implicit narratives contained within the many large stained glass windows she encountered when visiting cathedrals. ‘Pieces of Me’ is a juxtaposition of those works. Thirty-seven prints on paper, most no bigger than the palm of a hand, require the viewer to step closely into their range and engage with the richness of detail. This creates an intimacy with the works together with an experience of limited physical space. Influenced by Cirque and Beardsley, the design of the works successfully creates an atmosphere of concentration on the particular. The viewer is interlocked within a confined boundary and Ellis’ lived experience of physical disability is momentarily glimpsed. In that place, there is an extraordinary world within a world, limitation surpassed by possibility. Some of these works represent that world and others ‘capture the slippage between memory, dream and hope’ states the artist. Nine larger colour prints on silk reflect the later and were drawn from Ellis’ romantic imaginings of sky and stars.

Monica Ellis, Pieces of Me - Exhibition.

When: 5 June – 18 June 2008

Where: Art at Home Gallery, 467 Darling Street, Balmain NSW 2041

Contact: 0418 660 097