Untitled (Summer Show)

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 & Articles
Fresh - A series profiling Contemporary New Zealand Practitioners
The Physics Room Annual, 2001
Devenish, Lee.