Paper cut pieces celebrating space

NEW Zealand-born creative Ellen Sorensen wears many hats, from visual arts, to music, to film, to teaching, and voicework.

Now she’s depicting all of her creative places under one roof as part of the latest offering by the old Butchers Shop Gallery.

Her exhibition Home : Work presents nearly 20 papercut and light works portraying the locations and tools behind her various trades.

Having migrated to Melbourne in 2013 before establishing her creative home in Ballarat a decade ago, she said the show is all a personal showcase of how her surroundings have informed her artistic practice.

“It’s about portraying where am I in Ballarat in terms of my professional life and how that ties into my art practice,” she said.

“I moved to Melbourne in pursuit of art and music but moving to Ballarat afforded me a lot of space and time and community I’ve needed to set that up.

“I work as a piano teacher with [the Ballarat Centre of Music and the Arts] and I do VO at the Art Gallery of Ballarat. I have my own studio practice and I do voiceovers with Those Voiceover Guys at Bakery Hill, and I make music under Shadow Feet.”

The collection will range from large-scale multi-layered light boxes to smaller unlit works all hand-framed by Sorensen.

Locales such as the Art Gallery of Ballarat and BCMA headquarters as well as Sorensen’s home studio are depicted alongside smaller pieces representing personal objects like recording tools, cameras and exercise equipment.

“There’s lots of components to what I do here on a weekly basis,” she said.

“The main thing I’m looking forward to is having all my networks in one place. I have so many jobs here and they’re all very meaningful to me and creatively leaning.

“What’s come about for this show is how much I’ve been keeping going but also how important my communities are around me.”

Launched last Saturday, Home : Work is open until 30 March.

Sorensen will be present at the gallery from noon to 4pm on Saturdays and Sundays throughout the show’s run.