Nell: Face Everything at Heide

For more than three decades, Australian artist Nell has explored the thresholds between joy and grief, the everyday and the sacred, through works that combine humour, tenderness and a touch of rock’n’roll energy. Face Everything, curated by Lesley Harding, is Nell’s largest survey yet – an ambitious takeover of Heide Modern, opening on October 11 and running until March 8, 2026.

Over 85 works fill the iconic modernist building, including over 50 new works. They range from tapestries and mosaics to sculpture and intimate assemblages made with everyday household objects. Deeply site-responsive, the exhibition populates the former home with an extended family of characters and spirits, asking “Who is home?” and “What is in the nest?” The result is an environment animated by recurring motifs – birds, snakes, eggs, apples, lightning bolts and her signature open-mouthed faces – that invite immediate emotional connection while probing deeper cycles of life, memory and belonging.

By blurring the boundaries between interior and exterior, art and domestic life, Nell channels the vision of Heide founders John and Sunday Reed – and their architect, David McGlashan – of a “gallery to be lived in”. The result is part celebration, part seance: a charged space where ghosts, spirits and symbols sit comfortably alongside the everyday.

Find out more and book tickets at heide.com.au. Heide is open 10am–4pm Tuesday to Friday and 10am–5pm Saturday and Sunday.

Broadsheet is a proud media partner of Heide Museum of Modern Art.