EXHIBITION HOURS
12–6PM THU–SAT, 12–4PM SUN

OPENING DRINKS
5:30–7:30PM THURSDAY 11 JUNE

 

The title for Eleanor Hall’s debut solo show comes from an evocative line of poetry by Louise Gluck:  “We see the world once, in childhood. The rest is memory”. In making these paintings, Eleanor was drawing on a time and place from her early childhood when she and her siblings would run through the bush to rock platforms, tidal pools and turquoise sea, and feel like they were in an idyllic world of their own. Gluck’s poem parallels what neuroscience tells us – that the ways we see and experience the world in childhood implant emotions and images in memory and influence how we see into the future. Building this body of work, Eleanor was also influenced by Charlotte Bronte’s phrase: “We wove a web in childhood, a web of sunny air”. Joy, wonder, but loss, too, colour the moments inspiring the works presented here. That cocoon of sunny, carefree childhood doesn’t last. As we recall and remake it, we feel its joy and the pain of its loss. Eleanor hopes the works will spark the viewer’s own connections with this idea of childhood wonder and memory.

‘Race You to the Water’ – NFS
‘How High is the Sky’ – $1950
‘Sky Pool’ – $1650
‘Follow Me In’ – $1950
‘Morning in the Grotto’ – $1850
‘Winter Dip’ – $1650
‘Into the Weeds I and II’ – $2200
‘Rockpool’ – $375
‘At the Rockpools’ – $1950
‘Chasing the Light I’ – $1850
‘Chasing the Light II’ – $1650
‘Intertidal 1’ – $375
‘Intertidal 2’ – $375
‘Into the Weeds I’ – $600
‘Nightfall’ – $375
‘Palm Pod Green’ – $600
‘Palm Pod Purple’ – $600
‘Palm Pod Red’ – $600
‘Sea Pods’ – $600
‘Still Life for Mum I’ – $850
‘Still Life for Mum II’ – $850
‘Still Life for Mum III’ – $850
‘Still Life for Mum IV’ – $850
‘Still Life for Mum VII’ – $850
‘Still Life for Mum VIII’ – $850
‘Intertidal III’ – $375
‘Into the Weeds II’ – $600
‘A Web of Sunny Air’ – $1950
‘If I Could Fly’ – $1950

ABOUT ELEANOR HALL

Eleanor Hall is a multi-disciplinary Australian artist, interested most keenly in abstract depiction of the landscape. After more than two decades as a broadcast journalist, she graduated from the National Art School with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, in 2024.  She draws inspiration from daily encounters with the natural world, especially the ocean and hinterland of Eora country.  Here, she explores the rhythms of a wild, coastal world, both above and below the waves.  It is a world of swiftly changing moods, of ancient weathered cliffs and rock platforms, of tenacious flora and oddly elegant sea creatures, filtered by the sunlight’s slant, changing through the day and over the seasons. Using a mix of painting and printmaking techniques, Eleanor’s work expresses the rhythms, shapes, textures and patterns that she sees and feels in these places.  An ocean swimmer, she is often in and under the water, inspiring abstract works that challenge traditional landscape concepts like a stable horizon and linear perspective.   The viewer will not be able to identify the place she paints but it feels somehow familiar, if a little disorienting.

Her work is held in private and corporate collections in Australia and Singapore.