Links or index to the selected exhibitions and projects. Selected Exhibitions Byproducts 2024 Flotsam jetsam 2024 constellation in the cranny 2018 ON PAPER the elephant in the room paper contemporary 2023 paean Passing Through 2022 paper contemporary 2019 Playbox forms on edge Several ways of conversations

Installation of mixed media (plaster, timber, cardboard, foam) in Chinese characters. Flotsam jetsam Installation of Chinese characters of google translation of 'flotsam jetsam' made with plaster, cardboard, foam, pumice, covered in gouache, Chinese ink, wax SLOT 18 ·08- 21 ·09 2024 Anie Nheu began a discussion of her piece Flotsam and jetsam by reading it aloud. Inadvertently perhaps, identifying her work as both poetry and installation. The large character in a box on the right reads as exit. The characters that follow speak of a watery journey and things thrown overboard along the way, presumably to be washed this way and that by the prevailing currents. As we spoke Anie’s poem became a lament for a Chinese culture that she has never known and conversely an Australian culture that to her remains elusive. Anie was born, on the road, to parents who had already left China and who would take another 17 years to arrive in Australia where Anie assumed her nationality. Here, decades after arriving in Australia the poise of Anie’s installation speaks of China not so much as a culture lost but as a culture imagined. This is not the story of a migrant discovering and reclaiming an abandoned culture, it is a story of cultural invention. The idea that the scripted characters of Chinese language observe both the role of a symbol and of a picture seems to be carried into the graphic arrangement of this installation. It is as though there are two languages being spoken at one time. There is the Chinese story and another story of arrangement that functions as a kind of dance between the various elements of the installation. This is as much a language as the Chinese characters it incorporates. And one like Anie’s Chinese cultural heritage that is more a product of her imagination than it is of received or learnt conventions. There is a gentle touch at work here. One that celebrates the unique qualities of humble materials crafted in the simplest of fashions. Collectively, the serenity engendered by this installation delivers it far from the component elements of its construction and its location, on a street where the various cultures of Australia jostle for a voice. Beyond any cultural precepts this installation has the voice an artist. A most singular artist whose art may be best read as an addition to our culture rather than being the product of any particular culture. Tony Twigg 2024

Contact page to message or subscribe to updates on art events join the mailing list Email* Subscribe I want to subscribe to your mailing list. send a message First Name Last Name Message Send Submitted!

Collaborative project by Anie Nheu and Jan Fieldsend exploring emotions conveyed by the elements used in their assemblages of forms, objects and textures; and almost all works take the form of imaginary bodies with memories. Playbox a collaboration with Jan FieldsendInstallation of paintings, collage of found materials AIRSpace Project 1.8.2014-16.8.2014 The project arose to some extent in an impromptu fashion. This in effect characterises the nature of the work, and hence the title, Playbox. Both artists are drawn to the emotional content conveyed by the elements used in their assemblages of forms, objects and textures; and almost all works take the form of imaginary bodies with memories. In the act of attempting to put two distinct practices into one space, conversations arose not only about formal and spatial concerns but also about poly-culturalism and the ensuing flux that is within each individual, and of course in the wider world. Negotiation of space/place and the making of sense requires a great deal of imagination and an ability to accept really odd things being together. Odd, not in a pejorative sense but perhaps more evoking a gentle poignancy of things not being even, of unsettledness or even as an antidote to standardisation. In his respect it may be apt to observe that Nheu is more interested in eroded painted forms and how they inhabit the space assigned to them, and Fieldsend in the productive alliances of decoration, inimalism, hard-core nostalgia and nature. In this collaborative project with Fieldsend, Nheu was drawn to the thoughts of Mono-ha, a school of art in Japan active between 1968 and 1973, as a way to relate and understand Fieldsend's installations. Loosely translated as 'school of things', Mono-ha art is experienced as multi-sensorial. It uses ordinary objects such as rocks, steel, sticks and cotton with as little human intervention as possible, and often is ephemeral in nature. The focus is on the 'the things’ themselves and their interdependence through juxtaposition and placement.The elements are stripped of their obvious identity and then through the working process particular sensory qualities are amplified. Nheu has attempted to draw on these ideas to create abstract tactile forms made with painted plywood and moulded acrylic paint. In some instances these materials are used as themselves with their intrinsic characteristics laid bare, but often as much stand in as rich shadowy bodies, or perversely doubling as cavities. Anie Nheu, Jan Fieldsend 2014