ELLIE HANNON
NEWCASTLE NSW, Australia
Ellie Hannon is an Australian artist based in Newcastle NSW that works across exhibitions, public art and community engagement projects. These process-led actions fuel Hannon’s visual account presenting personal and political issues in relation to nature. She explores the natural environment as both a subject and a point of departure that begins an investigation into how interactions and impacts on these spaces shape individual and collective identity.
Working primarily as a painter, Hannon creates visceral, immersive stills of the natural world. Characterised by her bold and unexpectedly harmonic colour scape’s Hannon’s paintings employ gestural mark making with playful textures and perspectives formed through patch-worked backgrounds, gravitational mid- grounds and intricate foregrounds.
Since completing her Bachelor of Fine Art at Newcastle University in 2009 Ellie
has exhibited annually, including the Corner Store Gallery in Orange, Newcastle Art Space, and over the last 3 years exhibiting in Melbourne at Backwoods Gallery and Marfa Gallery after completing a residency at Qbank Gallery Tasmania in early 2019. Most recently Ellie completed a 3 week artist residency aboard a research vessel with the Schmidt Ocean Institute in the West Timor sea. These achievements have cemented her place in the gallery scene in Australia.
Hannon’s community engagement began early in her career when living in Indonesia for 3 years collaborating with community art projects. Returning to Australia in 2014 Ellie’s practice evolved to engage the public space, working
on large scale site specific murals that depict abstracted scenes from nature. Collaborating on community projects most recently with the NSW Government “My Community Grant,” initiative, designing and facilitating workshops for a community courtyard revitalisation; Big Picture Festival mural projects, and has collaborated with Marrawuddi Arts Centre liaising with local community members and stakeholders to design and install large scale murals with local Indigenous artists.
Photography : Peta Lumley