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A work of installation of mixed materials: plastic serving plate painted in gold colour, abstract geometric painting on 3 panels of hessian used for coffee beans exports, and an Ikea child chair in white. Paean Installation with painting on hessian, plastic serving plate, Ikea chair SLOT 28.04.2019 - 01.16.2019 Like many artists, Anie Nheu sees her life reflected in her art. She feels that because her life went one way rather than another her art has permission to go that way as well. As this idea of representation grows it becomes an exercise in mapping that can chart life across generations. It can stretch to accommodate ancestors and locate the artist with in a pantheon of concerns that artists will often describe as their way of making sense of the world. Anie was born on the road, as she said “moving from place to place with my parents since the civil war in East Timor”. To live a life, as she sees it, in 3 parts, now drawn into a “harmonious whole”. This is the map she has given us. Sketched out on 3 hessian bags stitched together with twine and Anie’s painting that has settled across the surface in a way that does not obscure the origin of her bags - bags,metaphorically that she has lumped since her days in East Timor as an infant. Of course the work is a painting, symbolic of nothing more or less than itself. It gracefully observes the conventions of abstraction and achieves a beauty that is new to the hessian sacks. But Anie has included some jarring elements. The work is improbably placed on the wall, as if she were to continue working on it rather than display it for our considerationThere is a chair, arbitrarily placed that seems to contradict our preconceptions of scale. And far off to the side is a golden oval that might be something venerated. The painting that is a map has been given its own space; its own set of preconditions that is different to ours. It is somewhere else. Tony Twigg

An exhibition of abstract geometric painting on shaped marine ply. Forms on Edge AIRSpace Project 05-20 August 2016 One of the ideas that sustains Nheu’s visual exploration is the relationships the body forms in the space it inhabits. ‘Relationships’ encapsulates the experiences of a body in a myriad of affect and effects, both tangible and intangible. The background narrative is told through the female body of a perpetual migrant with a culture of birth that is predominantly patriarchal. Resettlement and adaptation brought changes in traditionally assigned roles. Negotiations for place and roles in the new community at large, and at a micro level within the family unit, were acutely felt. These ideas form the basis of the visual framework for the exhibition. Visually, the placement of paintings in an enclosed space becomes the metaphor in the process of resettlement. Like fields with no borders, encapsulated experiences are by nature inter-corporeal; identity is socially constructed and defined by borders and forms. The exhibition as a whole attempts to amass these two seemingly contradictory elements and dwell at its meeting points hedging edges to redefine place and space. The paintings are in effect formed by these edges where space and borders meet. The space the paintings inhabit plays an integral role in the composition of the exhibition. It is used literally in the context of the negotiation of space. Paintings are made with implied sustained emotions that define these ‘bodies’. The visual cues for these are surface treatments, shapes, quality of the edges where two spaces meet, and ultimately, how they claim the space they inhabit. Photographed by Joy Lai & John Dennis

An installation of abstract geometric paintings on shaped marine plywood, exhibited in SLOT’s window space. The work explores the notion of an obvious presence—something visually assertive yet deliberately overlooked to maintain the status quo or preserve a sense of equanimity. The Elephant in the Room Acrylic on marine plywood, soft plastic 355x220x90 cm SLOT 20.12.2015 - 20.01.2016 Anie Nheu’s art is about space. Most literally in this piece, it is the space between 2 pictures. This is the gallery exhibit almost always overlooked, the artefact essential to all museums, it’s the place where something isn’t, as Anie Nheu describes it, the Elephant in the room. In this piece, the gallery-like space around the work has been artfully “sculptured” into a form of equal importance to the objects that make up the exhibit. And it is the art of a dance. A painted colour doesn’t cover an entire surface; it leaves a colour behind that pushes the form back while correspondingly the wall pushes forward. At another moment holes cut in the work offer lagoons of white wall while offshore two islands of colour seem to have been deposited, “Spratley like”. This picture is not presented on a wall, it’s colonising the wall. Gently underlining the fact that it has taken ownership of the space. Gracefully wrapping around a corner in the wall and quietly stepping off the wall onto the floor this work has arrived in our space, subtly merging with our space as we observe its elegant form. In her notes on the piece, Anie Nheu describes her work as “identity formation” a process where the obvious can go unsaid. Here among the morphing relationships of her forms she reads the emotive content of the work that replicates her life as a migrant. Travelling with her parents from Taiwan through the 3rd world to Australia what might have been a firm foundation for most of us was fluid for Anie. Things have never been just one thing for Anie. And if we think for a moment few things are ever just one thing. This elegantly restrained work approaches the edges of most art and fearlessly steps across them. With out hesitation it side steps the self-serving clatter or transactional enterprise and in its place offers us poetry reflection and silences that otherwise would remain unseen, the elephant in the room, perhaps. ctre of what is perceived. Tony Twigg

An exhibition of works on paper boards at Factory49, Marrickville. The project explores the interrelationship between the occupied and negative space using abstract geometric imageries, focusing on shapes and edges. On Paper Factory49 5.10.2017 - 28.10.2017 On Paper, is a small body of work planned for the Project Space for Factory49. These works continue the artist's interest in developing her visual language in bringing the invisible into the physical realm. The installation focuses on what is presented, and what is perceived, and how the two negotiate their coexistence in our day to day lived experiences. Visually, this is suggested through the feel of the body. This manifests in rendered, evocative forms and their distinct way of inhabiting their assigned space. Surfaces of these works serve as a metaphor for the site of exchange, where the body is simultaneously an active agent and a receptor of external influences. These intermeshed connections are drawn onto the surface with considered mark-making using various media. In the confines of this small space, the forms are arranged to frame the ‘connections’ they have with one another. The space created is intimate and subtly surreal, touching off a sense of wonder and imaginary dialogues that are at once universal and personal. The title, On Paper, relates literally to the use of paper as the material support for these works. At another level, this expression is used here in its usual sense: in theory, in writing, figured at face value. In day-to-day operations, what is on paper is constantly being negotiated with our inner perceptions: our understanding of what is perceived may not be the very understanding that props the spectre of what is perceived. Photographed by Joy Lai & John Dennis

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

This body of work is an extension of the previous exploration of the solo exhibition, Forms on Edge at AIRspace Projects in 2016. The edges, forms and placements in space were the primary vehicle in image making and in assembling emotive narratives. For this exhibition, the change of material from plywood to paper clay introduces the sense of touch as the predominant form of expression in their making. Constellation in the Cranny AIRSpace Project 2.11.2018 - 16.11.2018 This body of work is an extension of the previous exploration of the solo exhibition, Forms on Edge at AIRspace Projects in 2016. The edges, forms and placements in space were the primary vehicle in image making and in assembling emotive narratives. For this exhibition, the change of material from plywood to paper clay introduces the sense of touch as the predominant form of expression in their making. The touch brought its metaphor into the visual realm. The reflexive nature of touch adds the reading of cause and effect in the constellation of these forms, creating a dynamic simultaneous back-and-forth feel, while the spatial considerations and placements integrate the negative space into the whole. This project aims to 'make sense' embodying the invisible and the affects of body memory and its processes. + These works remain experimental in their making. Air-dried paper clay has been widely used for intricate sculpture and craftwork, it is less common in its use as a painting support. The material introduces the fragile characteristic, dictating their process and handling. This in turn encapsulates the energy and care in their making, which ultimately lends the forms their intrinsic characteristics and identity. Photographed by Joy Lai & John Dennis ^