Heather Ellyard, Dust Storm

Heather Ellyard: Dust Storm

The Artist

According to the Janet Clayton Gallery, Heather Ellyard was born in Boston, USA. She migrated to Australia in 1970 and spent three years in Papua New Guinea just after its independence. After years in Collingwood/ Melbourne, she currently lives on a remote property in Central Victoria. Ellyard has held 30 solo exhibitions, in Adelaide, Canberra, Maitland, Melbourne, Sydney and Taree, and has been represented in more than 50 group shows, including Paris, Durban and Beijing, as well as the Blake Prize in Sydney three times. She was art reviewer on ABC radio for three years, has taught part-time in art schools in the ACT, Adelaide, and Melbourne, was on the board of Artbank for four years, and has written for art publications since 1985. She has received two grants from the Australia Council and one from the South Australian Department for the Arts. Ellyard’s work is held in private collections here and abroad, and in public collections including the National Gallery of Australia, the Commonwealth Parliament House Collection, the Jewish Museum of Australia, Artbank, the University of South Australia, the Premier’s Office of South Australia, the University of Canberra, Monash University Medical Centre and Gawarshad Institute of Higher Education, Kabul Afghanistan.

The Work of Art

Heather's works of art portrays and  preserves  the natural world which is done through the use of collage incorporating her abstract paintings. Dust-Storm is just such a painting. The work includes forms which may be a bird and vegetation caught up in a choking dust storm. Given Heather's aims, the work is an effective composition. The dust storm helps to cloak and at the same time threatens the abstract forms within.

References

Alan & Susan McCulloch, The Encyclopedia of Australian Art,  Unwin & Allen, Sydney 1994.

Janet Clayton Gallery, entry for Heather Ellyard, https://www.janetclaytongallery.com.au/ellyard-biography