Ella Whateley

Prayers for the Dead 2020-21 (work in progress) is one part of the larger project, What is Prayer? These works on Chinese paper are my response to Covid 19, to the soaring mortality rates experienced in countries all around the world. For every 100 marks made - as someone who prays daily as part of my spiritual practice - I stop and pray for 100 people who have died from the virus. Rubbings, taken from the locations in which the work was made, are incorporated into each work, and place is therefore indexically referenced within a form of existential space.

As an Adjunct Research Fellow at MADA, Monash University, as part of my research What is Prayer?, prior to March 2020, I have travelled to China, Indonesia and Taiwan observing prayer practices across these countries and across various faith traditions. Due to Covid, I am having conversations people of different faiths about their prayer practices on digital platforms.

Later in 2021, I hope to spend a period in Indonesia and speak in person with people of different religious backgrounds and make work from my findings.

In 2019 works generated from the residency at National Taiwan University of Arts (NTUA) in Taipei were exhibited at The Australian Center on China In the World Gallery, Faculty of Asia and the Pacific, ANU, and at FortyFive Downstairs, Melbourne. During the 4 month residency at NTUA - financed by a Taipei Ministry of Education Research Award - I researched Chinese inks and paper, calligraphy and traditional Chinese painting and the portrayal of the sacred.

Two bodies of work emerged from auditing NTUA classes, the first referencing Chinese calligraphic seals and the second referencing traditional Chinese landscape painting, with rubbings being used in both sets of works. In conjunction with my research into Daoism and experimentation with Chinese inks on Chinese paper, I responded particularly to the rock sculptures found in Chinese gardens, the macro landscape (sacred mountain) delivered in micro form to the (domestic) garden. I attempted to deliver a hovering, mysterious space - the macro and the micro in tension together - not through the portrayal of the ideal landscape, as does traditional Chinese paintings, but through combining the reference to the existential (extraordinary) with the material (ordinary), in the one seemingly contradictory work.

The Chinese aesthetic of the beauty of the ink blot, suffuses all this work. Ink is appreciated on many levels, it is enjoyed for its particular material properties, creating unique, abstract shapes, and for what it might represent, such as a floating cloud, and for the lyrical way that it delivers language in calligraphic form. This aesthetic is very close to my own.

A selection of works shown here.
From the top:
First image: Pooling 集思 98cm x 220cm, Chinese ink, Japanese ink, European ink, acrylic paint, pigments, 2018.

Second image: Australian Centre for China in the World Gallery, Faculty of Asia and the Pacific, ANU, Canberra. Living Water: Journey in Inks exhibition, 2019.

Third image: Picnic at Hanging Rock 2, 懸崖上的野餐 2, 98cm x 220cm, Chinese ink, Japanese ink, European ink, pigments, 2019

Fourth image: Raise Up series: Unseen Beauty 5, 高舉系列: 潛藏之美5, European ink, Chinese ink, oil pastel on Chinese paper, 98cm x 220cm, 2019.

Fifth image: Picnic at Hanging Rock 3, 懸崖上的野餐 3, 98cm x 220cm, Chinese ink, Japanese ink, European ink, acrylic paint, pigments, 2019.

Sixth image, 4 works:
left: Water, Rock & Soul 4, European, Chinese, Japanese inks, pigments, oil pastel on Chinese paper, 35cm x 45cm, 2019.
next left: Water, Rock & Soul 2, European, Chinese, Japanese inks, pigments, oil pastel on Chinese and Japanese papers, 35cm x 45cm, 2019.
third image from left: Water, Rock & Soul 2, European, Chinese, Japanese inks, pigments, oil pastel on Chinese and Japanese papers, 35cm x 45cm, 2019.
right: Water, Rock & Soul 1, European, Chinese, Japanese inks, pigments, oil pastel on Chinese paper, 35cm x 45cm, 2019.

Seventh image: Taiwan Ambassador Elliott Charng who opened the exhibition Jouney in Inks at Australian Centre on China In the World Gallery 2019, seen with Ella Whateley.

These photographs are a few of the images I have taken between 2018-2020 in Taiwan, China and Indonesia, while exploring the parameters of prayer around Asia. Currently an Adjunct Research Fellow at MADA, Monash University, my research project is called ‘What is Prayer?’

As somebody who has a daily prayer practice, I am intrigued by the many forms and practices that a broad, inclusive idea of prayer can take. Observing and resting in the prayer practices across various faith traditions when able to travel overseas, I am currently having conversations people of different faiths about their prayer practices on digital platforms.

Later in 2021, I hope to spend a period in Indonesia to speak in person with people with different religious backgrounds and make work from my findings.

In 2018, during a 4 month residency at National Taiwan University of Arts NTUA - financed by a Taipei Ministry of Education Research Award - I was invited to exhibit at the Australian Office In Taipei and at NTUA to showcase my research into Chinese ink and paper, and particularly Chinese calligraphy and landscape painting.

As part of my every day experience living in Taipei, I experienced the significance of a personal seal (or signature chop) when conducting business. Auditing traditional Chinese art classes at NTUA gave me insight into seal cutting as part of the long history of calligraphy. Consequently I saw evidence of the ‘seal’ all around me. As I began to take rubbings - indexical evidence of my place and time in Taiwan - from my environment, I experienced the manhole covers as giant embossed seals from which I could make prints.

Two bodies of work emerged from auditing NTUA classes, the first referencing Chinese calligraphic seals and the second, traditional Chinese landscape painting, with rubbings being used in both sets of works. In conjunction with my research into Daoism and experimentation with Chinese inks on Chinese paper, I responded to the rock sculptures found in Chinese gardens, the macro landscape (sacred mountain) delivered in micro form to the (domestic) garden. And I attempted to deliver a hovering transitional and mysterious space, (the macro and the micro together), not through the portrayal of an ideal landscape as traditional Chinese paintings does, but through combining the reference to the existential (extraordinary) with the material (ordinary), in the one work.

The Chinese aesthetic of the beauty of the ink blot, suffuses all this work. Ink is appreciated on many levels, it is enjoyed for its particular material properties, creating unique, abstract shapes, and for what it might represent, such as a floating cloud, and for the lyrical way that it delivers language in calligraphic form. This aesthetic is very close to my own.

A selection of works shown here.
From the top:
First image: Raise up series: Unseen Beauty 4 高舉系列: 潛藏之美 4, 123cm x 245cm, Chinese ink, European ink, oil pastels, 2018.

Second image: Raise up series: Unseen Beauty 1 高舉系列: 潛藏之美 1, 98cm x 220cm, Chinese ink, European ink, oil pastels, 2018.

Third image: Between Heaven and Earth 天地之間, 98cm x 220cm, Chinese ink, European ink, oil pastels, matcha tea, 2018.

Fourth image: Ella Whateley, NTUA studio, Taipei, 2018.

Fifth image:
left: Pocket Rocks 2 掌中乾坤 2, 98cm x 178cm, Chinese ink,
European ink, oil pastels, oolong and matcha tea, pigments, 2018.
right: Pocket Rocks 1 掌中乾坤 1, 98cm x 178cm, Chinese ink,
European ink, oil pastels, oolong and matcha tea, pigments, 2018.

Sixth image: Raise up series: Footprint 3 高舉系列: 腳印3
69.5 x 134cm, European ink, Chinese ink, oil pastels, 2018.

Seventh image: Raise up series: Unseen Beauty 4 高舉系列: 潛藏之美 4, 123cm x 245cm, Chinese ink, European ink, oil pastels; exhibited at Fortyfive Downstairs, Melbourne, 2019.

In 2017 I was commissioned to make a work for the Prayer Room of the Austraiian Centre for Christianity and Culture where the work Breathing Space: Into the New Creation is now permanently housed.

Prior to installation at ACC&C, Breathing Space: Into the New Creation was exhibited at M16 Artspace in Canberra as a multi-sensory installation. While immersed in a sound piece by contemporary composer Benjamin Drury, in a scented atmosphere, the viewer was invited to rest and reflect, accompanied by the suspended double-sided artwork. On one plane, through the graduated palette of skin tones and the metaphor of light, this work aimed to draw the viewer into a new quiet space to help the mind be stilled. On the other plane, the crossbars and stretchers could be seen - the skeleton holding the linen skin in place. This ‘new back’ became another face and space for focus, and softly inscribed on the raw linen were added the prayers of those who had asked for prayer during the exhibition.

And each year during the period of Lent, this work is turned to expose the wooden crossbars and raw linen and receive the prayer requests that have been received over the preceding year; and on Easter Sunday it is turned back again to show the plane of colour.

Breathing Space: Into the New Creation, acrylic, gouache and oil on Belgian linen; cedar wood frame, crossbars, stretchers; and chinograph and pencil, 150cm x 130cm.

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TimeSpun 1-5: The Fellows,
School of Art and Design Gallery, Australian National University, Canberra, 2018.

In 2017-18, I was awarded a Vice-Chancellors College Visiting Artist Fellowship to work with Dr Peter Riggs of the Research School of Physics and Engineering, ANU, on the subject of time perception; specifically on the topic of how we experience the passage of time, and how we make durational judgements. I am interested in making affective artworks that challenge the nature of what it means to be human. After speaking with Dr Riggs I was convinced that temporal perception was a fertile ground to explore preconceived ideas about the human percepton of reality.

Discovering that duration judgement can be subjective, I set about finding how to interfere with temporal perceptions. By interpreting the research findings of Droit -Volet et al., I learnt that temporal perception can be affected by stimulating heightened attention and heightened emotion.

The TimeSpun series of spinning discs, explores what roles colour, tone and movement might play in affecting a perception of time duration. Since the science has found that time perception becomes more subjectively disrupted with longer durations of attention, I made artworks that had the potential to engage the viewer for longer than a minute. The resulting interactive works comprise of layered sets of painted discs that can be spun by the hand of the viewer I wish to engage the findings of Time-spun I therefore made I was interested to consider the latest science on temporal perception and interrogate if this area might be a fertile ground to challenge what might be preconceived ideas about how we experience reality.

A selection of works shown here.
From the top:
first image: TimesSpun 1: Oil on 3 x perspex discs on perspex base, widest diameter 44cm, 2018.

second image: Interactive Timespun discs, The Fellows, ANU, 2018.

third image: TimesSpun 2: Oil on 3 x perspex discs on mirrored perspex base, widest diameter 44cm, 2018.

fourth image: TimesSpun 3: Oil on 3 x perspex discs on mirrored perspex base, widest diameter 44cm, 2018.

In 2015, The Metaphysics of Space: Painting a Body of Light, was exhibited at School of Art and Design Gallery, Australian National University, Canberra and at FortyFive Downstairs, Melbourne, 2016. It was the culmination of a practice led research PhD, which asked the question, ‘how can I offer a contemporary invitation to the metaphysical - to the spiritual - through abstract painting?’ Referencing the historic spatial traditions of Western religious art, it employs two approaches to light as a response to exploring metaphysical space in two-dimensional form.

Through painting the changing natural light experienced during the twenty four hour cycle of sung liturgies, while on retreat at the Abbey, a Benedictine monastery in New South Wales, the Liturgy of the Hours over-arches two linear series. The first, Inter, uses graduated vertical stripes, while the second, Passing, uses horizontal stripes. When a standing before these large works, the vertical stripes connect to the human body and to the way it navigates space, and the horizontal stripes connect the body to the landscape. The palettes of both series are an interpretation of witnessing the passing of time and the passages of light during the cycle of liturgies at the monastery at Jamberoo.

A selection of works shown.
From the top:
First image, left hand paintings and second image:
the INTER series from the Liturgy of the Hours, a collection of eight uniformly sized paintings on linen.
From left to right: Inter, Lauds 1, Inter: Lauds 2, Inter: Vespers 1,
Inter: Vespers 2, Inter: Vespers to Compline 1-3, Inter: Vigils. All works are acrylic and gouache on linen, 130cm wide by 180cm, 2015.

Third image: the PASSING series from the Liturgy of the Hours is comprised of five uniformly sized paintings entitled, Lauds, Middle hour, Vespers, Coming to Compline and Vigils, and progresses through twenty four hours from first light to darkness. Each work is 2385cm x 130cm, acrylic on linen, 2015.

Fourth image: Inter:Vespers-Compline 1-3, each works is acrylic and gouache on linen, 130cm wide by 180cm, 2015.

Fifth image: Passing: Coming to Compline, acrylic and pigments on linen, 2385cm wide by 130cm, 2015.

Sixth image: Passing: Coming to Compline and Passing: Vigils, acrylic and pigments on linen, 2385cm wide by 130cm, 2015.

Seventh image: Left; Inter, Lauds 1 right Inter: Vespers 1, acrylic and gouache on linen, 130cm wide by 180cm, 2015.

In 2015, The Metaphysics of Space: Painting a Body of Light, was exhibited at School of Art and Design Gallery, Australian National University, Canberra and at FortyFive Downstairs, Melbourne, 2016. It was the culmination of a practice led research PhD, which asked the question, ‘how can I offer a contemporary invitation to the metaphysical - to the spiritual - through abstract painting?’ Referencing the historic spatial traditions of Western religious art, it employs two approaches to light as a response to exploring metaphysical space in two-dimensional form.

In The Metaphysics of Space: Painting a Body of Light, I took two approaches to light as a response to exploring metaphysical - or spiritual - space in a two dimensional form. The Communicant series began as my response to the historic European tradition of icon painting where light is a reflection of the sacred both literally, with the use of reflective materials such as gold leaf, and metaphorically where the sacred is seen as emitting light.

The individual ink works shown here are made using transparent European inks, interactive pigments, fluorescent paint and graphite on heavy-weight European papers. The works are reactive to the changing light and consequently to their surroundings. Because they are light interactive, like the icons they reference, they could be said to generate light. The effect is such that the viewer may feel like the work is ‘talking to’ her as she moves around it. Just as an icon would react to the flickering candle light as a worshiper moved and breathed, so too do these Communicant works.

A selection of works shown.
Works from the top:

Communicant: Love, European inks, interactive pigment on 800gsm watercolour paper, 150cm x 106cm.

Communicant: Grace, European inks, interactive pigment on 800gsm watercolour paper, 150cm x 106cm.

Communicant: Kindness, European inks, interactive pigment on 800gsm watercolour paper, 150cm x 106cm.

Communicant: Joy, European inks, interactive pigment on 800gsm watercolour paper, 150cm x 106cm.

Communicant: Constancy, European inks, interactive pigment on 800gsm watercolour paper, 150cm x 106cm.

Left hand work small:
Communicant: Composure, 76cm x 58cm, ink on watercolour paper.
Right hand work small:
...touching: 4th Station of the Cross, 76cm x 58cm, ink on watercolour paper.

Cyan-of-the-Times: The Fellows,
School of Art and Design Gallery, Australian National University, 2018.

In 2018, I was awarded a Vice-Chancellors College Visiting Artist Fellowship to work with Dr Peter Riggs of the Research School of Physics and Engineering, ANU, on the subject of time perception; specifically on the topic of how we experience the passage of time, and how we make durational judgements. After speaking with Dr Riggs I was convinced that temporal perception was a fertile ground to explore ideas about the human perception of reality.

Discussions with Dr Riggs on the conscious impression of temporal experiences resulted in two bodies of work that sit in contrast with each other. The first was a six month series of cyanotypes called Cyan-of-the-Times and the second was a series of interactive discs, TimeSpun 1-5, that attempt to play with the subjective nature of time perception as described by scientific research. The Cyan-of-the-Times prints were made using everyday objects. Each print was made by exposing freshly sensitised paper to sunlight between 11am and 2pm for a duration of between 1 and 20 minutes. These resulting works conform to the common-sense, Dynamic theory of time, in which the passage of time is experienced as following a linear flow from past to future. The experience of the cycle of the passage of light and dark is integral to this theory of temporal perception.

A selection of works made shown.
From the top:
first image: Cyan-of-the-Times, 30 of 180 cyanotypes, each 25.5cm x 20.5cm, randomly selected from prints made each month between January1 - June 30th 2018.

second image: Cyan-of-the-Times, 30 of 180 cyanotypes, each 25.5cm x 20.5cm, randomly selected from prints made each month between January1 - June 30th 2018.

third image: Cyan-of-the-Times, 9 of 180 cyanotypes, each 25.5cm x 20.5cm, randomly selected from prints made each month between January1 - June 30th 2018.

fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh image: Cyan-of-the-Times, 1 of 180 cyanotypes, 25.5cm x 20.5cm, randomly selected from prints made each month between January1 - June 30th 2018.

eighth image: Cyan-of-the-Times, 60 of 180 cyanotypes, each 25.5cm x 20.5cm, randomly selected from prints made each month between January1 - June 30th 2018.

Come Hover 2017, Snapshot, Goulburn Regional Gallery, NSW .
The work on paper Come Hover is from the Breathing Space series. It continues my exploration into the potential of two-dimensional artwork to offer the viewer a contemporary invitation to the metaphysical. As an visual artist, abstraction offers me a contemporary language with the potential to use space and light as both the subject and medium within a work. This painting seeks to create spatial ambiguity through a combination of two historic European sacred painting traditions: the interactive, projective tradition of the icon dating from the Medieval period, with the recessive tradition of linear perspective from the Renaissance. Both spatial traditions are mediated here through the Modernist device of the grid, which draws attention to the surface of the work and to the painting as an object in its own right.

image: Come Hover, ink, interactive pigments, fluorescent paint and pencil on 800gsm watercolour paper, 150cm x 106cm , 2017.

Collective Spirit, exhibited in 2012 at the exhibition Communicants, Canberra Contemporary Art Space, is a large, light-sensitive, abstract work on paper that explores the idea of the greater spiritual community, hugely diverse and yet united through shared humanity. This drawing shows 1450 reflective haloes to represent, through proportional colour variation, an indication of the religious affiliation in the world at the time this work was made. Whilst colours shift to represent religious affiliation , other colours remain the same to suggest the unity of humanity. No two haloes are the same,yet each halo is integral to the whole. Depending on religious appropriateness, red wine or non-alcoholic red has been each in each halo to depict a unified global community through the idea of shared hospitality.

From the top:
first image: Collective Spirit, 250cm x 150cm, European Inks, reflective and iridescent pigments, red wine (alcoholic an non-alcoholic) on paper.

second image: Collective Spirit, (detail), as above.

third image: Collective Spirit, (detail), as above.

2009, The Gathering, M16 Artspace, Canberra, ACT.

These 2009 works were a continuation of my exploration into ambiguous spatial play in the service of mystical effect. Seen through a shifting fluorescent grid, the highly pigmented poured paint was allowed to flocculate, gather and pool suggesting stasis and movement in the same breath. Colour is the primary language, the warm and cool hues playing off each other in harmonious tension.

These paintings are a selection only.
From the top:
Ascending 1, 120cm x 95cm, Acrylic and fluorescent paint and pigments on canvas, 2009.

Ascending 3, 120cm x 95cm, Acrylic and fluorescent paint on canvas, 2009.

Ascending 2, 120cm x 95cm, Acrylic and fluorescent paint on canvas, 2009.

Exercise in Time Travel, Ascending 1, 60cm x 45cm, acrylic and fluorescent paint on canvas, 2009

Timescape: Gallery1, M16 Artspace, Canberra, 2011.
The theme of this group show was an exploration of how time and space might be embodied in the material process of painting.
The Timescape works aim to challenge an everyday perception of (linear) time. The affect, created by the subtle, layered paint and interactive pigments, creates an-other space - a breathing space - in which time and space is suspended.

A selection of paintings from the exhibition only shown.
From the top.
second image: Timescape, M16 Artspace Gallery 1, Canberra, 2011

second image: Timescape 2, interactive pigments, acrylic and fluorescent paint on canvas, 95cm x95cm, 2011.

third image: Timescape 1, interactive pigments, acrylic and fluorescent paint on canvas, 95cm x95cm, 2011.

fourth image: Timescape 4, interactive pigments, acrylic and fluorescent paint on canvas, 95cm x95cm, 2011.

fifth image: Timescape 3, interactive pigments, acrylic and fluorescent paint on canvas, 95cm x95cm, 2011.

sixth image: Timescape 5, interactive pigments, acrylic and fluorescent paint on canvas, 95cm x95cm, 2011.

seventh image: Communicant: Composure 2, interactive pigments and ink on watercolour paper, 58cm x 76cm, 2011.

Raising Lazarus with Blue, Australian National Capital Artists Gallery, ANCA, Dickson, ACT, 2006 Taken as a chronicle of flesh and blood or one of spiritual symbolism, the Raising Lazarus paintings are seeped in the material triumph of love and life over death and darkness.

Through the languages of colour, paint and mark-making, this exhibition explored the consequence of a relationship with the divine. Saturated hues, mixed media and the use of dynamic line, echo and explore the idea of rebirth. Abstraction offers a breadth of space to interrogate existential concepts. Paint, mark and colour act as metaphors for material and spiritual exploration, it is a language of its own. Forgiving and omnifarious paint becomes both subject and another form of intercessor.

A section of the works from the show.
First image (detail) and second image:
Raising Lazarus with Blue, acrylic paint and pigments on a composite grid of 240 rectangular canvas boards, 487cm x 152cm, 2006.

Third and Fourth images:
left: Goodness, 95cm x 120cm, mixed media on canvas, 2006.
right: Love, 95cm x 120cm, mixed media on canvas, 2006.

Fifth and sixth images:
left: Faithfulness, 95cm x 120cm, mixed media on canvas, 2006.
right: Peace, 95cm x 120cm, mixed media on canvas, 2006.

Seventh image,
‘Lazarus come out’, diptych, 182.5cm x 152cm, mixed media on canvas, 2006.

2007, Ascending, M16 Artspace, Canberra, ACT.

These 2007 works experiment with the mechanics of spatial play, the ‘other’ dimensional in two dimensions in the service of mystical effect. Paint is poured, and layered both thickly and thinly, to both describe and disguise figure and ground. There is tangible tension between dark and light tones and warm and cool colours; they playing off each other in harmonious tension.

These paintings are a selection only.
From the top:
Ascending 1, 120cm x 95cm, acrylic and fluorescent paint and pigments on canvas, 2009.

Ascending 3, 120cm x 95cm, acrylic and fluorescent paint on canvas, 2009.

Ascending, Descending, 43cm x 36cm, acrylic and fluorescent paint on canvas, 2009.

Ascending 2, 120cm x 95cm, acrylic and fluorescent paint on canvas, 2009.

Atmospherics: Foyer Gallery, School,of Art and Design, Australian National University, 2013.
This exhibition showed a line of investigation that I pursed during my practice-led doctoral work. Atmospherics concentrated on exploring the affect of spatial recession on the body of the viewer, through the use of atmospheric perspective and colour theory, both components of Renaissance perspective. The two colour and two tonal ranges originated from observing the changing natural light over 24 hours. Scale change, orientation and the stratifying of the colours were other important factors in this series of works.

Information gathered from viewers’ experiences and reactions to this exhibition informed the final work produced for my doctoral exhibition, The Metaphysics of Space: Painting A Body of Light.

A selection of works made shown.
From the top:
Atmospherics #15, 106cm x 150cm, acrylic and gouache on watercolour paper, 2013.

Atmospherics #2, 77cm x 58cm, acrylic and gouache on watercolour paper, 2013.

Atmospherics #1, 77cm x 58cm, acrylic and gouache on watercolour paper, 2013.

Atmospherics #6, 77cm x 58cm, acrylic and gouache on watercolour paper, 2013.

Atmospherics #5, 77cm x 58cm, acrylic and gouache on watercolour paper, 2013.

Atmospherics #14, 106cm x 150cm, acrylic and gouache on watercolour paper, 2013.

Exercise in Chuting Space and Time Travel, 2019.

Chute Space, M16 Artspace, Canberra. Chutespace is a fun and appropriate space to show one of the latest of an ongoing series of small works begun in 2011, Exercises in Space and Time Travel.

Exercise in Chuting Space and Time Travel, gouache, fluorescent and acrylic paint and reflective pigments on board, 20cm x 14cm, 2019.

Exercises in Space and Time Travel, is a series of small paintings that I have been adding to since 2010. They are painted exercises that explore the spatial mechanics of creating the illusion of three dimensional space, (and ‘other’, mystical spaces), in a two dimensional form. I have been adding to this series over the years, exploring different spatial traditions and techniques for condensing and re-imagining space and time in the flat form, that we approach as ‘art’.

A selection of works
From the top:
Exercise in Space and Time Travel #15, acrylic paint on canvas board, 15cm x 20cm, 2010.

Exercise in Space and Time Travel #12, acrylic paint on canvas board, 15cm x 20cm, 2010.

Exercise in Space and Time Travel #11, acrylic paint on canvas board, 15cm x 20cm, 2010.

Exercise in Space and Time Travel #10, acrylic paint on canvas board, 15cm x 20cm, 2010.