Art Writing: Column – Notes on Being Human, Jan – Feb 2025 VAI News Sheet

My column ‘Notes on Being Human’ in the January – February 2025 issue of Visual Artists Ireland News Sheet, in which I chronicle my return to art practice, including 2024 solo exhibition at Pallas Projects/Studios and residency at Artlink Fort Dunree.

Full text:

Notes on Being Human
NEVA ELLIOTT CHRONICLES HER RETURN TO ART PRACTICE WHICH INCLUDES AN EMPHASIS ON MAKING AS HEALING.

When I returned to my practice in 2021, after a break of over a decade, I did not immediately assume the title of ‘artist’ again. Instead, I embarked on feeling out each step towards it.

The first step – leaving my job – was not a clean break from the ‘working’ world. Committing to my practice entirely meant saying no to freelance work. As anyone who has relied on freelancing will know, this decision was especially difficult. To my elation, I eventually navigated it by realising that while other people could be found for various projects, I am all my work has – to paraphrase Maeve Brennan’s words of advice to her fellow writer, Tillie Olsen.

The second step was visibly re-establishing myself as a working artist by consistently finishing and showing new work – thereby announcing my return. Heading into 2024, I defined the next phase as ‘de-institutionalising’ my practice. For me, this meant that rather than focusing on deadlines or outcomes, creating should be a non-definitive proposition, a site for exploration, with ‘doing’ rather than ‘presenting’ being central.

To support this, I planned what I called my ‘Year of Making’. This had two key elements: my residency as the 2024 Irish Artist-in-Residence at Artlink in Fort Dunree, County Donegal; and an exhibition as part of Pallas Projects/Studios’ Artist-Initiated Projects series.

The PP/S opportunity – to challenge and test practice in the public realm – aligned with my plan. The resulting exhibition, ‘Notes on Being Human’, was designed to act as a parenthesis for this time of making and as support, motivation, and manifestation. It involved rephrasing the question “What shall I show?” to slice through the fabric of making happening at that moment. The residency was transformative, helping me shift toward a focus on making, through extended time in an environment away from my everyday life, but also through an enforced disconnecting in a studio without electricity and internet.

My working mode continued to be based on and in my life, processing recollections and psychological states into action; however, I stepped away from the heroization of finalised, exhibited ‘works’, focusing instead on the act of ‘working’ – resulting in pieces as by-products of generative activity rather than conceived as finished objects.

Come September, after eight months of making, the ‘workings’ I presented as part of ‘Notes on Being Human’ acted as a kind of ‘interim report’ [JL suggestion] on my current practice. Rather than being presented as static, the viewer encountered the works as they unfolded, their ultimate realisation in form and import still to be determined. To signal this, I labelled several pieces as ‘ongoing’, not to imply incompletion, but to highlight the importance of the process itself, distinct from the more traditional ‘in progress’ wording.

In tandem with this focus on practice, ‘Notes on Being Human’ brought together the acts of making that were part of my post-bereavement experience. Turning emotional labour into physical labour, I engaged in a dialogue between personal psychology and sculpture through acts of making. In this way, the primary audience for the work was myself, allowing space and time for healing through creation. The emerging pieces spanned sculpture, ceramics, textiles, photography, text, and performative gestures.

Regular studio time, breaking from other work and distractions, and a focus on making rather than showing have transformed my practice, allowing me to drop into a more intuitive space, expand my materials and methods, and work confidently. The next phase is to ask what my practice needs in 2025.

Neva Elliott is an artist and writer based in Dublin.
nevaelliott.com