Printmaker, 91, on a mission to keep art form alive

ELLIE Neilsen may joke that her qualifications, a “masters in age experience and diploma in country living”, come from the “University of Hard Knocks” but she is more than qualified to teach an art form that goes back to the times of Rembrandt.

Artist Ellie Neilsen with her treasured press in her studio at Morayfield. Photo: Dominika Lis

ELLIE Neilsen may joke that her qualifications, a “masters in age experience and diploma in country living”, come from the “University of Hard Knocks” but she is more than qualified to teach an art form that goes back to the times of Durer and Rembrandt.

The visual artist and printmaker has perfected her skills during the past 40 years and is passionate about passing them on to the next generation so they are not lost.

Ellie, 91, teaches art students in the studio behind her Morayfield home and four of them will join her in exhibiting their work at Caboolture Regional Art Gallery in April.

The studio is home to Ellie’s most prized possession, her printmaking press.

“It’s more precious than gold and my house, and it would be the one thing I would save in a house fire — if I could lift it,” she says.

To create her art, she etches an image onto a prepared piece of zinc, which is then covered in ink and rubbed off leaving the ink in the scratches. The zinc and paper are put though the press, producing a mirror image.

Ellie often doesn’t have an idea of what she’s going to create until she starts. “(I love) the feel of the metal. It tells you what to do,” she says.

She first dabbled in art when she was a child, entering work into the local show.

“Others did riding and cooking and whip cracking ... I didn’t do any of that, I just shoved some stuff in the pavilion and I annoyed the other kids by winning,” she laughs.

She says she studied art in her last year at school and developed her skills with the Australian Flying Arts School and later the Capricornia Institute of Advanced Education, where she taught first-year students in exchange for third-year lessons.

While she didn’t get “the piece of paper”, she picked up the skills she had been yearning.

Artist Ellie Neilsen's studio at Morayfield. Photo: Dominika Lis

Ellie’s studio is a treasure trove of work and a window into her wicked sense of humour.

Hanging on the wall is a self-portrait titled, Bad Hair Day, and the door is covered in paintings of cats added by artist friends.

Ellie and students Neen Burton, Malcolm Cassidy, Trudy Stephens and Maureen van de Zalm will exhibit their work at Caboolture Regional Art Gallery, from April 24-May 19.

Visit moretonbay.qld.gov.au/galleries-museums for more information