Ella Reed
Untitled (Summer Show)
December 13 - 23,
2000
The garden is represented literally in Ella Reed's work Untitled
(summer show), where four baskets of thriving Petunias are hung
in front of gallery windows, a small green watering can standing
at the ready. Their garish pink and air of suburban cosines contrasts
with the sparseness and anonymity of the surrounding gallery space.
Minimal to the point of barely there, much of Reed's work plays
on subtle interventions which tease and often perplex the viewer.
In her Masters submission at Christchurch's Centre for Contemporary
Art in 1999, Reed transformed the foyer of the gallery, stripping
back the detailing and furnishings to render the foyer in the
minimal white palette of the gallery itself. Dressing gallery
staff for the occasion in Blanchet black, and reducing and controlling
the gallery environment, Reed's work served to frame and critique
the work of fellow exhibiting students, the arts institution,
and the gallery itself.
Reviews & Essays Fresh - A series profiling
Contemporary New Zealand Practitioners
Essay by Lee Devenish
in The Physics Room Annual
2001
ISBN 0-9582359-1-0
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