Skip to main content
Menu

The National Portrait Gallery acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to Elders both past and present.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are warned that this website contains images of deceased persons.

Nell
Nell standing in her workshop next to a cross legged sculpture
Self-nature is subtle and mysterious - Tree Woman / Woman Tree
1 Nell at Crawford’s Casting, Sydney, 2022 Mark Mohell. Photographed on the land of the Wangal people of the Eora Nation. 2 Self-nature is subtle and mysterious - Tree Woman / Woman Tree, 2023 Nell, Warwick Edgington, Annette Blair and Belinda Toll, Canberra Glassworks, Crawfords Casting, Eveleigh Works. © Nell courtesy of STATION.

Nell is a multidisciplinary artist based on Gadigal land in the Eora Nation, Sydney. She studied at the Sydney College of the Arts, University of California and Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris. Her work fuses mythological, spiritual and popular cultural iconography to explore the complexities of the human condition, personal growth, transformation, femininity, cycles of life and death, and perceived dichotomies of existence. Nell has exhibited widely, both nationally and internationally. A monograph on her work, published by Thames and Hudson, was released in 2020.

Nell’s sculptural self portrait is a personification of the tree as nurturer and life giver, made through the physical processes of casting, forging and glassblowing.

Related people

Nell

© National Portrait Gallery 2024
King Edward Terrace, Parkes
Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia

Phone +61 2 6102 7000
ABN: 54 74 277 1196

The National Portrait Gallery acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to Elders past and present. We respectfully advise that this site includes works by, images of, names of, voices of and references to deceased people.

This website comprises and contains copyrighted materials and works. Copyright in all materials and/or works comprising or contained within this website remains with the National Portrait Gallery and other copyright owners as specified.

The National Portrait Gallery respects the artistic and intellectual property rights of others. The use of images of works of art reproduced on this website and all other content may be restricted under the Australian Copyright Act 1968 (Cth). Requests for a reproduction of a work of art or other content can be made through a Reproduction request. For further information please contact NPG Copyright.

The National Portrait Gallery is an Australian Government Agency