In the colourful paintings, Sutherland also delights in ambiguous motifs that are slippery in interpretation, where apparent meaning lurches or spins off to one side. In an earlier show, a curved triangular wave could be a menacing shark fin; in this one, a rectangular domino might also be a couple of dice; or reversed lowercase e's hovering number nines or picture hanging hooks. Depicted horizontal ‘shelves' are often precarious (on rollers)—or become sloping—and a title like ‘back issue' can mean a magazine, political debate, or the rear surface of a woman's torso.
Ella Sutherland is a Sydney-based New Zealand artist, well known for her formidable book design skills, and paintings that revel in bold flat colour, female body forms, typographic intricacies, structural metaphors and a repertoire of coded motifs that comment on queer theory, women authors and pioneer designers she admires….
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