What is the formal language for the asymmetrical sorrows, injustices and beauty of my time.

It is, for me, poetry

extreme poetry.

I mean, very condensed,

made visual.

Because I am not a poet.

I am an artist,

who uses words.

CONTINUUM 4: for the children at JCG is the 4th exhibition in my Continuum Project,           mindful of the future and what we must pay attention to, fix, hold dear, for the children in our siteline.

So that they know

where to find home.

So that they know

when to plant seeds.

So that they know

how to save alphabets

and why to collect words

wherever they are.

Homecoming may be slow.

CONTINUUM 1: tell me about the heart, was also held at Janet Clayton Gallery, 2012

CONTINUUM 2: mapping, to remember or to forget, was shown at FC, Melbourne, 2013

CONTINUUM 3: uncertainties above and below, was shown at MRAG, Maitland, 2015

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 27 solo exhibitions, in Adelaide, Canberra, Maitland, Melbourne and Sydney 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.