“Through the evocative language of painting, my hope is to create an invitation to the metaphysical. As an abstract painter and a person of faith, abstraction offers me a contemporary, non-prescriptive language with the potential to explore space and light as both subject and medium within the work.”

The Metaphysics of Space: Painting a Body of Light is the culmination of Ella Whateley’s practice-led doctoral research in Painting at the ANU School of Art. Building on the rich symbolic and experiential tradition of Western religious painting, Whateley’s research has focused on the significance of light, concentrating on two approaches to creating luminosity in paint: materialising light through the materials used and painting the changing light of the real world.

Whilst on retreat at The Abbey in Kangaroo Valley, Whateley experienced the unfamiliar monastic tradition of The Liturgy of the Hours. On her return home, Whateley was motivated to attempt to stimulate the viewer’s sense of interior and exterior space through creating an embodied experience of painted light. Consequently this monastic encounter has resulted in a series of painted investigations into the nature of light and space in which the interactive materials and colour interactions are intended to be facilitative devices for exploring the sacred potential of the image.