Ella Sutherland (born in Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand, lives and works in Sydney, New South Wales)
Ella is an artist and graphic designer whose work is concerned with the analysis and activation of text and visual language.
She investigates systems of reading and navigation within the built environment and printed spaces. Looking at the complexity of graphic language outside of commercial endeavours, she identifies gesture and narrative as elements tied to our interpretation of text and visual language. She employs these elements to coaxe a graphic sensibility to operate in a different register and shift the ‘typical’ readings of spaces and information.
Recent exhibitions include: Slow Seeing and Attention to Make, The Dowse Art Museum, Wellington, 2016; Beauty is in the Street, Objectspace, Auckland, 2016; Boring month start to finish, the whole month, North Projects, Christchurch, 2015; Speaking places: How to Work (with Matthew Galloway), Ramp Gallery, Hamilton, 2015. Recent publication projects include: with a body always but but still drying, designed for the Biennale of Sydney and Artspace, Sydney; Pale Like a Fish, edited and designed for North Projects, Christchurch, New Zealand, 2016; Speaking places: Hamilton 2015, artist publication for Ramp Gallery, Hamilton, New Zealand, 2016; Home & Away, artist publication for RM Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand, 2014.
Ella was co-founder of Dog Park Art Project Space and co-director between 2012-2014, she is a current board member of The Physics Room, both contemporary art spaces located in Christchurch, New Zealand.