The Void Embrace

June - July 2016, Australian National Capital Artists Gallery

In this solo exhibition, the works are a record of Shellaine's experiences in unfamiliar emotional geographies and a devotion to the act of drawing.  The drawings and sculptures in The Void Embrace are a response to her residencies and travel in Japan and Taiwan.  Moving back and forth between transparency and opacity these pieces slowly reveal their secrets to viewers.  Painstakingly drawing shimmering crystals mountains and figures tangled up in clouds, Shellaine's work deals with the sublime nature of the landscape and the body's insignificance within it.  By using her own connection with the Australian landscape, she investigates foreign spaces, love, loss, and all that falls between.

"The Void Embrace oozes confidence and maturity where Shellaine employs fewer marks in her drawings and her metaphors are minimal. Watercolours, pencil, ink, metallic powder and spray paint are the ideal media for works that sometimes scarcely seem to register. The unbearable lightness is evident in works that hang loosely from the wall and Shellaine’s spectacular “lace work” Anatomy of a mountain which is suspended in the middle of the gallery collecting the breezes of passing viewers. Refining earlier ideas, Shellaine continues to create a geography of emotion where elements of landscape and natural phenomena elegantly reflect real life experiences such as love and loss." David Broker, Director Canberra Contemporary Art Space

Photo credit:  Andy Mullens