‘One in a Million’ Ellen Prebble at Hastings Museum and Art Gallery
SARAH MILNE
As a working artist and arts writer, going to art shows and events is a central part of life, something I am incredibly grateful for. I can honestly say there are very few exhibitions I have seen in my life that have given me such joy as the Ellen Prebble Exhibition, which opened last week at Hastings Museum & Art Gallery.
Ellen Prebble has an enduring relationship with the Museum & Art Gallery, having visited throughout her life, and describes it as “a lovely little museum full of things that I love, including birds.” She has been working with the museum for over a year to bring her exhibition to life, including time spent choosing pieces of taxidermy from their collection to sit within the space.
Her work is nothing short of breathtaking. Her paintings and sculpture, drawn from influences ranging from the natural world to pop culture, are pure, fresh, bold and exciting. Familiar scenes are rendered in minute detail and a festival of colour from a palate she mixes herself.
Prebble is an artist who is truly in love with the things she chooses to paint and sculpt, with the process of making the work and the finished pieces. She showed me around her show, pointing out some of her favourite works. Ellen described The Albatross to me as “a wonderful painting of a beautiful and respectable bird,” and her favourite of all on show, Venice, a painting that is “one in a million!”
No wonder Ellen’s work is such a delight when it is made with such affection, belief and confidence in her talent and identity as an artist. I wanted to find out more about Ellen and her practice and went to visit her in her studio at Project Artworks in Hastings.
There she told me how she inherited her artistic skills from her great grandfather, who was a painter, and how proud her family are of the heights she is achieving with this gift, especially this, her first solo exhibition in a prestigious public gallery. I asked Ellen how it felt when she cut the ribbon to open the show. She said, “I felt very prideful and very famous. My exhibition is brilliant and everything I hoped for, fame, lots of pretty paintings and everyone finally realising what an amazing gift I have.”
I felt honoured to see the beginnings of Ellen’s newest work, a minutely detailed painting of Tokyo. She expects it will take her all this year to finish this. She chose Tokyo because it is a place she and her big brother, Thomas, want to go to – the home of Pokémon and Godzilla, two of their most favourite things. Ellen told me how she travels to places she wants to see as she paints. She wants to share these places with us too and paints with a vibrancy that “makes people feel like they are really there.”
Tokyo is a new painting, currently a vast bare canvas except for one tiny corner where the beginnings of a perfectly formed skyscraper are emerging. Ellen doesn’t outline her work or put down layers of wash and form. She frequently works from photographs, building her representation from a small block in the corner, spreading out in finished detail across the canvas. Scale and perspective come naturally, instinctively as she works.
Having studied Art at Hastings College, Ellen joined the studio at Project Art Works, where she has worked since 2017. As part of the Project Art Works Collective, her works have featured in exhibitions at venues including Piano Nobile Gallery (2019), the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum in the Turner Prize exhibition (2021) and the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art (2023).
Project Art Works CEO and Artist Director, Kate Adams says: “We are very pleased that Ellen’s work is now showing at Hastings Museum and Art Gallery. They have been great to work with and we know that this is a significant moment for Ellen in her life and practice. It is very reassuring to feel the strength of local connection and community that are so important in supporting the creativity and potential of its citizens, including Ellen! Her work invites viewers into a world that resonates with her interest in nature and aligns beautifully with the exceptional natural history collection of the museum.”
Ellen told me, “When people look at my paintings, I want them to feel amazed and fascinated.” That’s exactly how I feel when I look at her work. Ellen inspires me to approach my own art with the same conviction and joy as she does hers. This is a show I will keep coming back to.
The Ellen Prebble Exhibition is on at Hastings Museum and Art Gallery until 14t April 2024. hmag.org.uk/see-and-do/exhibitions/the-ellen-prebble-exhibition/
Ellen’s work can also be seen in the window of 12 Claremont, Hastings, as part of Untitled Gallery, a contemporary art gallery presented by Project Art Works, and at Residential at Baltic Centre of Contemporary Art till February which will be travelling to Copenhagen Contemporary in April.
For more information about Project Art Works visit www.projectartworks.org
We hope you have enjoyed reading this article. The future of our volunteer led, non-profit publication would be far more secure with the aid of a small donation. You can also support local journalism by becoming a friend of HIP. It only takes a minute and we would be very grateful.
Leave a Reply