A huge wok from a Kylie Kwong restaurant stars in this new show

A massive wok from one of Kylie Kwong’s restaurants becomes the head of a sculpture to create a curious, happy creature in artist Nell’s new show at Heide Museum of Modern Art.

The much-used wok has a smiling face cut into it and sits on top of a vintage wooden ironing board. Called Meeting the Day (inside) 2025, it’s a tribute to her wife Kylie Kwong, with a simple, if not obvious, message: look for beauty in the every day.

Rather than a traditional survey, Nell says it’s a themed show, site-specific and responding to the space in which it’s shown. Called Face Everything, it features 85 works, 50 of them new.

“It’s all works that have both those meanings: I see faces in everything, and to face everything, the difficulties and whatever life is asking us to face at any time,” she says, adding she intentionally chose work with colour due to the “dire” state of the world at the moment.

“You’ve got that nice joy, and sorrow and grief. It doesn’t shy away from harder things, but it’s not punching you in the face,” she says.

It’s typical of the Sydney-based artist, whose work riffs on ideas including life and death and impermanence – informed by her practice of Buddhism – nesting and domesticity, ghosts and spirits, pop culture and rock’n’roll (especially AC/DC) as well as nature, mothers and babies, and more.

She uses simple faces from open-mouthed “oohs” and smiley faces in eggs and ghosts in just about everything as a way to bypass intellect and to invite an immediate, emotional response. It’s also why she often uses text – her meaning is clear.

Many of the new works were created as a response to the building in which the show is housed – Heide Modern, a gallery “designed to be lived in” – by architect David McGlashan for Heide’s founders, John and Sunday Reed, in 1963.

Artworks are placed in different rooms in dialogue with the space: a gold-plated bronze poo called everyday happiness, 2016, sits in the bathroom and, in a room overlooking the magnificent gardens, a tapestry of a serpent and an apple, conjuring both Adam and Eve as well as any snakes potentially outside.

A few fallen leaves, made from hand-forged steel, also complete with happy faces, are scattered on the floor of the main room downstairs, as though they’ve blown in from outside. Hanging from the trees visible from that same room, are a series of smiling ghosts, swinging in the wind.

Nell uses an array of media: bronze, earthenware, painting, tapestry, mosaic, textiles, steel and glass. There is nothing screen-based or electronic.

“I just think it’s much more interesting ... I want for myself and for others to use the senses. There’s a lot of natural objects, thinking about the inside and the outside; really that is the thing that’s going to save us all, using our senses. So it’s about facing everything, it’s very intentional.”

While touring the show for this article, Nell moves a table holding a number of works and the leg gives way, causing the artworks to slide to the floor. Remarkably, many remain intact, but one ceramic is in pieces. It’s a moment of calamity for any artist to witness their carefully crafted work smash, but Nell regains her composure quickly, quipping, “Face everything hey, that’s it right there!”

Sanctuary and relationships are conjured throughout: in one room, Mother and child #3, 2025, a hand-blown glass ghost alongside a smaller “mini me” version, nestled in a beautifully crafted nest of branches, is so evocative it almost makes you weep.

At other times, the show is laugh-out-loud funny, especially the reimagined domestic objects that become characters, from a shovel sitting outside to a pair of expressive violins to the upside-down happy bucket.

A life-size bronze cast from the artist’s body sitting in the lotus position is a striking highlight in one of the bedrooms, with tree branches from hand-forged stainless steel as arms, and red glass ghosts hanging off each. Part of the National Portrait Gallery’s collection, it’s called Self-nature is subtle and mysterious – Tree Woman / Woman Tree 2023.

A new work Nell created with Brisbane-based Girramay/Yidinyji/Kuku Yalanji artist Tony Albert was unveiled at QAGOMA this month.

Continuing Australia’s tradition of big things, it’s a sculpture called The Big Hose, a huge 119-metre garden hose. Sitting outside Brisbane’s Gallery of Modern Art on the banks of the river, it doubles as a play thing for kids.

The Heide show is a career highlight for Nell. “To have a solo show at Heide Modern is beyond my wildest dreams and I’m pinching myself ... It was a home built for art, and art really sings in here.”

Face Everything is at Heide Museum of Modern Art from October 11 to March 1, 2026.

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