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- info | Anie Nheu
Information on the artist with artist statement, biography, CV, history of exhibitions, awards, projects, and trainings. Anie Nheu is an Australian artist based in Sydney, working on the unceded lands of the Gadigal and Wangal people of the Eora Nation. Her practice spans works on paper, painting, and sculptural installation, with a core interest in visual metaphor — specifically the tension between impermanence and anchorage, explored through material transitions, arrangement, or mark-making. Materials are sourced from manufacturing by-products and the natural environment. Their histories of function, labour, consumption, and exchange generate ideas that lend themselves to a metaphorical reading of the work. Observation and making are modes of inquiry, through which experience is examined and understood. This process of working-through — a 'revision' — sees materials, relationships, and ideas continually gauged and reconfigured to generate awareness Selected Exhibitions, Projects, Awards 2026 Byproducts II , Platform, by Canberra Contemporary, Manuka ACT 2025 Paper Contemp orary, Sydney Contemporary , Carriage Works, Newtown 2024 Byproducts , SLOTprojects, Alexandria Flotsam jetsam, SLOTwindow, Alexandria 2023 Paper Contemp orary, Sydney Contemporary, Carriage Works, Newtown SLOT20, Delmar Gallery, Ashfield Passing Through, Slot, Alexandria 2019 Paper Contemporary, Sydney Contemporary, Carriage Works, Newtown Group Print Show, Factory49, Marrickville Paean , Slot, Alexandria A silver voice from the corner, 2018 2018 Feeling Bodies , The Waiting Room, Sydney Hospital Constellation In the Cranny (solo), AIRspace Projects, Marrickville Paper Contemporary, Sydney Contemporary, Carriage Works, Newtown Waverley Art Prize, Highly Commended (Mixed Media Category) 2017 On Paper (solo), Factory49, Marrickville Paper Contemporary, Sydney Contemporary, Carriage Works, Newtown 2016 Forms on Edge (solo), AirSpace Projects, Marrickville Youkobo Art Space a Tokyo Residency Open Sttudio Liquid, Paper and the Space in Between 2015 The elephant in the room , Slot, Redfern Paper Contemporary, Sydney Contemporary, Carriage Works, Newtown 2014 Intimate Worlds [a group painting exhibition], AirSpace Projects, Marrickville 2012 Several Ways of Conversations (collaborative drawing exhibition as 3ppod), Shihan Gallery, Seoul, South Korea Remarking | Remaking , Blacktown Art Centre, Sydney Yarns between Bubbles (collaborative drawing as 3ppod ), Tin Sheds Gallery, Sydney 2010 Bodies in Sustained Emotions. galleryeight, Sydney 2008 At the Periphery of Space. Tin Sheds Gallery, Sydney 2007 My Story (group) Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing 2006 Tim Olsen Drawing Prize Kudos Gallery (Commended) 2004 Out On a Limb (group) Bathurst Regional Art Gallery 2003 Stitched, Naked (solo) 4A Gallery Hazelhurst Art Award: Art on Paper (Finalist) Training 2004-2007 MFA (Distinction) College of Fine Arts, UNSW 2004 Australian Postgraduate Award scholarship 1994-1997 BFA (Honours Degree, Class 1) College of Fine Arts, UNSW Professional Developments 2014-current Assists with projects at SLOT 2024-2026 Assists with projects at UPSpace Gallery 2017-2018 Committee member of AIRSpace Projects 2016 Artist Residency, Youkobo Artspace 2007 International Drawing Research Institute Symposium, Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing
- Anie Nheu, Australian Artist
Material Thinking & Art Making on the borrowed land of the Gadigal Wangal clans, the Eora people [Australia]. A visual documentation of art exhibitions featuring paintings, mixed media works on paper, and installation pieces. Between heaven and earth, 2026. Hessian, packaging cardboards, plaster, beeswax and pigments Image by Tina FiveAsh
- projects | Anie Nheu
Links or index to the selected exhibitions and projects. Selected Projects + Exhibitions Byproducts ii 2026 Byproducts 2024 Sydney Contemporary 2025 Flotsam jetsam 2024 paper contemporary 2023 Passing Through 2022 constellation in the cranny 2018 ON PAPER paean Playbox paper contemporary 2019 forms on edge the elephant in the room Several ways of conversations
- 2019 Sydney Contemporary | Anie Nheu
A record of mixed media works on paper submitted for Sydney Contemporary 2019. 2019 Paper Contemporary a Sydney Contemporary event +
- 2023 Sydney Contemporary | Anie Nheu
A record of works on paper submitted for Paper Contemporary, Sydney Contemporary 2023 2023 Sydney Contemporary Paper
- 2026 Byproducts II | Anie Nheu
Byproducts II 16/10-8/11 2026 Prop, 2026. Bamboo poles, eucalypt and white cedar branches, jute rope, shale rocks, beeswas, plaster. 210x480x337cm . This exploration followed from an exhibition in 2024 at SLOTprojects, where the use of found materials began— mainly manufacturing byproducts and matter selected from the natural environment. The subject of investigation became the tension between impermanence and anchorage, where materials, conditioned for their original intent, retain attributes that continue to shape their behaviour in the process of adapting to their new Between heaven and earth, 2026. Hessian sacks, packaging cardboards, plaster, pigment and beeswax. 227x340x80cm configuration. What draws me to them is what they already carry and their physical presence: histories of function, labour, consumption, exchange; weight, texture, a resistance that, worked against, opens onto the possibility of reorientation. A rudimentary, ephemeral quality runs through how things are joined, set against surfaces that feel distinctly contemporary. The contrast is deliberate. Assemblage courts unexpected, clumsy encounters between disparate elements, loosely bound into new relation. The work sits on a spectrum between intention and response, neither predetermined nor resolved. Looking and making become a process for acquiring transformative knowledge, practised through materials, offering insight into how experience is understood. This is not resolved work but a record of transformation: accumulated decisions, material tensions, moments of resolution, at times makeshift, held briefly in time. It remains open to change, held between construction and deconstruction, stability and flux, where transformation is not an endpoint but an ongoing condition. Installation view: Primed and waxed for promises, 2024. Gesso ground, beeswax and pigment on packaging cardboard. 174x48cm. (left) Forebear, 2026. Found cardboard box with bamboo pole support. 247x163x20cm The makeshifters, 2024-2026, packaging cardboard, clayboard, watercolour paper, canvas strips, graphite paint, pigments and beeswax, 190x145x12 cm
- 2025 Sydney Contemporary | Anie Nheu
Mixed media paintings of works on paper 2025 Sydney Contemporary Works on Paper The wheels were in motion long before this , 2025. Mixed media on Arches Huile 300gsm 76x168cm Drawing remains a constant in my practice. It guides and fleshes out the process from imagination to exploration. I’ve long been drawn to the visual language of the intangible and the unknown. Returning to works on paper this year came with its own set of challenges. The last significant body of work on paper was produced in 2023 for Sydney Contemporary. In 2024, I shifted to working with materials that carry visual weight, where the act of making depended on activating their inherent materiality as a compositional tool. The current work is no different—only the scale has shifted, down to the molecular level. Round about , 2025. Mixed media on Arches Huile 300 gsm 56c76cm This time, the focus turned to the interaction between mixed media—graphite, charcoal, watercolour primer, pigment, watercolour, gouache, and water-based crayon—and the surface of the paper. What sets this apart is the role of mark-making: its intention becomes central in orchestrating the composition. Despite the shift in materials, the exploration of spatial relationships continues to serve as a unifying thread. The works investigate spatial relationships and the coexistence of disparity and dissonance. Like many, I’ve felt the turbulence of recent years—a time of unrest and suffering, amplified by the ubiquitous reach of technology, where parallel lives feel both tangible and surreal. Alongside this, a pervasive sense of helplessness lingers, leaving us suspended in a situation without clear beginning or end. These themes reverberate throughout the works, with the titles offering insight into these abstract reflections. This body of work began as an artist’s book—an exploration of a shared world. Each page features a distinct abstract composition, resolved with specific intent. Some pages are cut horizontally at random points; others are folded vertically. As the book is leafed through, new compositions emerge through the juxtaposition of adjacent images. These visual collisions, combining the intentional with the non-intentional, give rise to new compositions. The element of the unknown sustains my curiosity in this process. There are no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ compositions, only more compositions to work with. Some have been reimagined as paintings on Arches paper. The phrase that surfaces in my consciousness is 'parallel collisions'. Swell, 2025. Mixed media on Arches Huile 300 gsm 56c76cm 1/21 Parallel collisions [proof of concept for artist's book] , 2025. Mixed media on Fabriano torchon 270gsm 29.5x42cm Dance of chance with infinity , 2025. Mixed media on Fabriano torchon 270gsm 29.5x42cm Blue liner , 2025. Mixed media on Fabriano torchon 270gsm 29.5x42cm Parallel collisions , 2025. Mixed media on Arches Huile 300 gsm 76x56cm The colouring pencils , 2025. Mixed media on Fabriano torchon 270gsm 29.5x42cm Soft tissue , 2025. Mixed media on Fabriano torchon 270gsm 29.5x42cm Our material cunnings , 2025. Mixed media on Fabriano torchon 270gsm 29.5x42cm Soup of signs , 2025. Mixed media on paper, 38x56cm No beginning , no end , 2025. Mixed media on Arches Huile 300gsm, 57x70.5cm
- 2022 Passing Through | Anie Nheu
An installation of a charcoal drawing of 2 old trees by a river bank framed in gold coloured bamboo moulding with a lopped tree branch at SLOT's window space. Passing through Installation with charcoal drawing and lopped tree branch SLOT 23.10 - 26.11.2022 Anie Nheu’s piece Passing Through is both an appreciation of nature and a consideration of the appreciation of nature in art. It began during a holiday on a farm at East Gresford beside Allyn River in the upper Hunter. Anie was struck by the beauty of the landscape and the trees she saw. So much so that she began drawing them, on this occasion a casuarina on the left and a eucalypt on the right. Back in her Sydney studio and faced with the proposition of making something out of her time away for SLOT, Anie focused on her drawing.In a pile of some-one-else’s thrown-out junk she noticed an exquisite Art Nouveau frame, a style that celebrated organic form, in particular trees. It seems to have set the tone of Anie’s piece. Lovingly restored it embellishes the rawness of the Australian bush with an orientalist elegance. Like a giant piece of ikebana, a tree branch cut and re-assembled for the window space offers a counterpoint to the stylised representation of bamboo that frames Anie’s drawing of native trees - incidentally it is drawn in charcoal, the burnt fragments of trees, and is pointing out that the paper is pulped and processed timber taking the metaphor too far? Standing looking at the finished work I found myself thinking how many ways can you say tree in art? Anie commented that she saw it as commodification. She felt that the process of art is to make a commodity out of an experience. In this case the revelry found in nature. Sure, it’s not such a big thing, but in the hands of an artist it becomes that. Tony Twigg
- 2024 Flotsam jetsam | Anie Nheu
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 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
- 2024 Byproducts | Anie Nheu
An exhibition of engagement with materials through responding, making and assembling- a way of making sense of experience. Byproducts I 6/9-6/10 2024 This body of work showcases a collaboration with materials. This collaboration generally occurred at two levels: the selection of materials whose lives originated for a different purpose, and the artist’s response to their inherent properties. They in turn are informed by a narrative of migration and its intergenerational effects. The plywood offcuts are remnants from previous projects, readapted into new work. Forms shaped by plasters and pumice intimate the byproducts of forced displacement and increased disorder. Cardboard boxes, an ambivalent material, are perceived as a symbol of a system designed to generate profit from cheap labour; here they suggest two readings, one is the drive of aspiration for a better life, and the other is a homage to those who delivered a better life to the coming generation. Working with these materials also demanded a response to the incidentals of their unexpected behaviour. Like gifting another vocabulary to a sentence, these incidentals pointed to the resolution of each work. The sense of these works, engendered through their materials and assemblage is at times contradictory, at others complimentary. It evokes senses of detachment and attachment, presence and absence, contact and separation, abandonment and reclamation, permanent and transient. Ultimately, the process of making is a way of engaging with the byproducts of displacements and emplacements. Working with the repurposed materials, and assigning them with a new identity, suggests a making good– reordering the disorder. Individual Works Installation View
- contact | Anie Nheu
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- 2012 Several Ways of Conversations | Anie Nheu
Several Ways of Conversations, 2012 As a follow-up to Yarns Between Bubbles, this second collaborative project brings together Asian artists Li Wenmin and Yiwon Park in Seoul, South Korea. The mixed media works on paper explore themes of identity by responding to each other's mark-making, while also providing space for each artist to express their individual voice within the shared composition. Several Ways of Conversations, 2012 As a follow-up to Yarns Between Bubbles, this second collaborative project brings together Asian artists Li Wenmin and Yiwon Park in Seoul, South Korea. The mixed media works on paper explore themes of identity by responding to each other's mark-making, while also providing space for each artist to express their individual voice within the shared composition.