Media Release: 10 January 2023
The Ellen Prebble Exhibition
20 January – 14 April 2024
The Ellen Prebble Exhibition at Hastings Museum & Art Gallery is the first solo show of work by Hastings-based artist, Ellen Prebble. Drawing on influences from the natural world to pop culture, and with a practice ranging from painting to sculpture, Ellen renders familiar scenes in minute detail and bold colours, recalling the animations and photographs that inform her research.
For this show, Ellen has brought together works from her studio practice and objects from the museum’s collection. Ellen has an enduring relationship with Hastings Museum & Art Gallery, having visited throughout her life, and describes it as “a lovely little museum full of things that I love, including birds.” Ellen regularly finds inspiration in topography, ranging from the wilderness to the city, and in the natural world, often pacing her canvases to coincide with key moments in the year – a season or a festival. She frequently works from photographs. Her approach is methodical and highly detail-oriented, working from one corner until the whole canvas is covered: “I have the gift to see and bring out inner beauty.”
Ellen has undertaken a number of commissions and her works have featured in exhibitions at venues including Piano Nobile Gallery (2019), the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum in the Turner Prize exhibition (2021) and the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art (2023). Having studied Art at Hastings College, Ellen joined the studio at Project Art Works, where she has worked since 2017. Ellen enjoys sharing her unique perspective with others through her art and is inspired by the possibility of others exploring her archive: “When people look at my paintings, I want them to feel amazed and fascinated.”
ENDS
Press Contacts
Jessica Courtney Bennett
Communication and Projects Manager, Project Art Works
[email protected] +44 1424 423555
Images
For key images please use the following link or contact Jessica Courtney Bennett.
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/91q4tpzqd6lcd6w6u9m3x/h?rlkey=05fmeimcpw8kdw6t59kp29au2&dl=0
Notes to Editors
About Project Art Works
Project Art Works collaborates with people with complex support needs, families and circles of support. Their practice intersects art and care, responding to neurodivergence, its gifts and impacts. Challenging paradigms of inclusion, it spans direct practical and holistic support, film, events, projects and exhibitions.
The studios provide the conditions for a broad range of autonomous and collaborative practices with neurodivergent artists, who take part on their own terms. Alongside the studios, the Support Collective brings together people who care for people with complex support needs where we share our experience and protect our rights through training, resources and advocacy.
Human connection and what it reveals about identity and how we view each other are explored within their work. Their practice continues to respond to the functional and ethical structures of diligence and care, respecting self-determination and privacy whilst working towards greater visibility and understanding of neurodiversity in culture.
Project Art Works is an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation. Alongside neurodiverse artists and makers, the collective includes paid and unpaid caregivers who help each other to navigate through the complexities of health and social care systems.
Project Art Works was shortlisted for the Turner Prize 2021 and their exhibition Residential is currently open at Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art.
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About Hastings Museum & Art Gallery
Hastings Museum and Art Gallery is a nationally recognised museum that seeks to inspire creativity and learning through the innovative use of collections to connect people and communities. Our collections are rich and varied, with strengths in social history, and includes fine and decorative arts, archaeology, world cultures and natural science.
The Museum was established over 130 years ago and has always offered people the opportunity to explore art, culture and history from Hastings and around the world for free.
Hastings Museum and Art Gallery has recently joined the list of Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisations.
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