Yoking it up with NELL
- Cynthia Sciberras
- Mar 20
- 4 min read
Q&A with Nell: Art, Feminism, and the Power of Collective Storytelling
For over three decades, Australian artist NELL has embraced a creative practice rooted in resourcefulness, collaboration, and an unshakable commitment to making art wherever and however possible. She reflects on women’s liberation in 2025, the importance of taking up space as an artist, and her deep admiration for those challenging systemic inequities in the art world. She also shares the story behind the NELL ANNE QUILT, a powerful tribute to the often-overlooked lives and legacies of women, set to debut in Radical Textiles at the Art Gallery of South Australia later this year.
Do you have a guiding mantra or philosophy that influences your creative practice?
I started art school over 30 years ago and nothing has really changed since that time. I still make and do whatever I can, with what I have, wherever I am and with whoever is around at the time! Simple.
In 2025, how do you interpret the idea of women’s liberation, particularly as an Australian artist?
Wherever there is inequality on any grounds it’s a human rights issue. Feminism is no different, which is why so many great men have become active feminists in recent years. I admire all female artists who do their thing and are visible. I love when female/non-binary artists quite literally take up a lot of space with their work in galleries, museums and public spaces. I’m also grateful to people who are calling out discrimination and are actively involved in consciously rebuilding organisations, like the Countess Report for crunching the numbers in an Australian context. Imagine all the art they could have made instead of making charts and graphs? I bow down to them.
Which Australian artist do you most admire right now?
Amy Taylor from Amyl and the Sniffers.
What are your proudest achievements as an artist over the last decade?
For me, making art is lifetime of continuous practice where every day at the studio is good day. But to be frank, my greatest achievement as an artist is not getting a hernia from all the heavy lifting.
What have been the most significant challenges you’ve faced, as a woman in the Australian art scene?
All artists experience challenges. It’s a wonky path. The most important thing to me has been to cultivate deep friendships in the art world to talk about the personal issues we encounter and to wholeheartedly celebrate each other. As an art student I worked for Lindy Lee as a studio assistant, and I couldn’t have wished for a better mentor at that formative stage when one needs guidance in the world. Over the years I’ve shared studios with some incredible female artists such as Susan Norrie, Thea Anamara Perkins, Raquel Ormella, Sarah Contos, Cherine Fahd, Phaptawan Suwannakudt, Tina Havelock Stevens, Claudia Nicholson, Kate Mitchell, Agatha Gothe-Snape, and Mikala Dwyer.
Tell me about the NELL ANNE QUILT
Around 2016 I read a news article that stated only 17% of Wikipedia biographies were about women. (The current figure has risen to 19.7%) I thought that, as a society, we desperately needed to tell more stories about women. And not necessarily stories of trailblazing or famous women but ordinary legends like my nan, your mother, your aunt, your sister, your friend or your neighbour.
In early 2020, I initiated a community quilt project in collaboration with the McCahon House in Aotearoa New Zealand. We did a public callout for anyone, from first time sewers to experienced needle workers, to contribute a piece of fabric embroidered with the name of a women who had meaning to them. Contributors were also invited to write a few sentences about the woman they chose to honour. The sentences and images of the patches were uploaded to the McCahon House website where the women’s stories were quilted together in the digital space. At the same time, with a group of wonderful volunteers in workshops and in my studio, we stitched the physical patches together into two quilts to create a powerful celebration of women, their lives and legacies. More than 440 embroidered patches were sent in from all over the world and it took nearly five years to complete the NELL ANNE QUILT.
And who is “ANNE” in the NELL ANNE QUILT?
I am a long-time admirer of Colin McCahon’s work but I wanted to bring more attention to Anne Hamblett (McCahon’s wife) an artist in her own right, instead. Anne’s art practice was diminished and eclipsed by her husband’s career and by raising four children. Her full potential as an artist, remains, forever unknown. And yet, in resourceful poverty, Anne continued to be creative in the domestic realm. A classic tale.
I had been thinking so much about Anne’s life and simultaneously wondering how I was going to stitch the variously scaled and coloured patches into a cohesive composition. One night as I was falling asleep, in that half dreamlike yet wakeful state, a vision of two quilts, one reading “ANNE”, the other “NELL” came to me. The names could be read in two different configurations—in each quilt in the grid of four letters, and horizontally across the two quilts. I had to get up and draw it to confirm my mind wasn’t playing a trick on me!
AN NE
NE LL
The letters forming ANNE and NELL are clear when looking at the two quilts from a distance. But very quickly, hundreds of other women’s names demand to be seen and read. The NELL ANNE QUILT is a work about the interconnection of individual and collective female stories and histories. We are all made from each other.
NELL ANNE QUILT will be exhibited for the first time in the major exhibition Radical Textiles at Art Gallery of South Australia from 23 Nov 2024 – 30 March 2025.
Radical Textiles showcases over 150 textiles by artists, fashion designers and activists associated with moments of profound political, cultural and social change over 150 years.