The Wake

In addressing the profound topics of birth, death and rebirth, the Australian artist Nell makes use of a singular combination of influences, from Buddhism to the Australian band, AC/DC. 

Comprising forty-one hand-built ceramic figures, The Wake was created over two years. Although the majority of the pieces were made in her Sydney studio, four pieces were made at Ernabella Arts, Australia’s oldest Aboriginal art centre, in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara lands of northern South Australia.

An autobiographical work, The Wake is dedicated to Lucky, a baby whom Nell tragically lost when she was forty-one years old. Nell’s chorus of ceramic vessels are illustrated with her signature motifs of smiley faces, tear drops, lightning bolts or crosses – emotive and universally recognisable symbols. The artist refers to mourning rituals across cultures, meaning that these figures also echo the role of Japanese haniwa – the human or animal terracotta tomb ornaments that guarded burial mounds until the sixth century. Referring to traditions of memento mori, the reminders of mortality depicted in Western paintings from around the seventeenth century – such as skulls, clocks or dying flowers – Nell has also incorporated dried flowers, and cockatoo and tawny frogmouth owl feathers. Poised on wooden stools, Nell’s group of ceramic characters appears like a choir paused in song at a memorial. 

Leigh Robb, Curator of Contemporary Art