Bonita Ely facts for kids

Bonita Ely (born in 1946) is an Australian artist. She lives in Sydney and her art has been shown all over the world.

In the 1970s, she became known for her unique art styles. These included Fluxus, which is about art as an experience, and environmental art, which focuses on nature. Her work often explores important topics like women's rights, protecting the environment, and social issues. She uses many different types of art to share her messages.

Early Life and Learning

Bonita Ely was born in Mildura and grew up in Robinvale. This town is on the Murray River in Victoria, on Latji Latji country. Her family grew oranges and grapes on land her father received after serving in World War II. This was part of a plan to help soldiers settle down.

In an interview, Ely shared that her childhood was very creative. Her parents encouraged her to try new things. She remembers drawing from a very young age, even before school. She would draw in the dirt with sticks or on walls with charcoal from the wood stove.

After high school, Ely moved to Melbourne. She studied painting at Caulfield Technical College. Later, she studied sculpture at the Prahran College of Fine Arts. Here, she was influenced by the Fluxus art movement. She continued her studies, earning higher degrees from the University of Sydney and the University of Western Sydney. For her PhD, she researched how Taoist philosophy influenced modern art.

Teaching Art

Bonita Ely's first teaching job was at Prahran College of Fine Art. She taught sculpture and led workshops. These workshops often followed her art performances. For example, after her 1979 performance "Jabiluka UO2", she discussed Aboriginal land rights. After "Murray River Punch" in the early 1980s, she talked about pollution in the Murray River. Performance art was a very new idea back then.

She later taught at the Sydney College of the Arts and Charles Sturt University. From 1990 to 2017, she lectured at the College of Fine Arts (COFA) at the University of New South Wales. She helped create the Sculpture, Performance, and Installation Studies area there. During this time, she also led workshops in Vietnam and New Zealand. She guided many students through their Honours, Masters, and PhD programs. In 2017, she retired as an Honorary Associate Professor.

Artistic Journey

Ely became known as an environmental artist in the 1970s. Her art often focused on the Murray-Darling river system. She uses many different art forms to explore women's issues, environmental concerns, and social problems.

Her first art show was in London in 1972. But her art really started to get noticed in Australia at the Mildura Sculpture Triennial in 1975. Her large art piece, C20th Mythological Beasts: at Home with the Locust People (1975), began when she lived in New York from 1973 to 1975.

Her performances in the 1970s and 1980s mostly dealt with environmental and political topics. For example, in her performance Jabiluka UO₂ (1979), Ely explored issues about Aboriginal land rights and uranium mining in the Northern Territory.

The artwork Breadline (1980) looked at themes of womanhood and pregnancy. In this performance, Ely used bread dough to create a female form. She then baked the bread and served it to the audience. This work explored women's traditional roles, celebrating motherhood while also questioning how women are sometimes seen as less intellectual.

In Dogwoman Communicates with the Younger Generation (1981) and Dogwoman Makes History (1983), Ely explored how humans are fascinated by other species. She also looked at how history is often told from a male point of view. She created a kind of "religion/history" using images of women and dogs. She documented these while she was an artist-in-residence in Berlin.

Her three-part art piece, We Live to be Surprised, was shown in 1991. It featured nine red thunderbolts rising from the floor. It also included "snabbits" – made-up creatures with a snail's body and a rabbit's head. A short story explained that these creatures were the only ones left on Earth after a disaster. They were a food source in this future world. Viewers walked through a golden light corridor, a space between energy and chaos.

Art Style and Influences

Bonita Ely's art is often described as environmental, social, or feminist. She has said that the Fluxus Movement was an early influence on her. In 2019, she was interviewed for the State Library of Queensland. In this interview, she talked about her life, her art, and her career.

The Murray River

The Murray River, one of the world's longest rivers, has been a major focus in Ely's art. Murray River Punch (1980) is one of her most famous performances. She first performed it at Melbourne University in 1980. During the performance, she acted like a cooking demonstrator. She narrated a "recipe" for a "punch" drink.

The "ingredients" for this punch were the pollutants found in the Murray River.

More recently, her work has focused on the river's poor health during the Millennium Drought. During this time, farming practices caused problems like acid pollution and toxic algae blooms. Ely's detailed research along the river led to a photo series called The Murray's Edge. She also did a new version of Murray River Punch, called the Dip. This version showed how little water there was, making the "punch" into a thick "dip" of river pollutants. In 2014, with artist Emma Price, she created "Murray River Punch: the Soup". This time, the "ingredients" were rubbish collected from a picnic spot on the river. The performance made fun of TV cooking shows.

In 2019, after a long drought, over a million fish died in the Darling River at Menindee. The river stopped flowing, and the water became hot. This was perfect for toxic blue-green algae to grow. When the water suddenly cooled, the algae died. Bacteria then fed on the dead algae, using up all the oxygen in the water. This killed all the fish. Bonita Ely went into the river among the dead fish. She posed like a famous painting, showing helplessness and sadness. Her performance was photographed by Melissa Williams-Brown.

Let Me Take You There: the Great Artesian Basin

While researching near the Adani Mine, Ely learned about the mine's possible threat to the Great Artesian Basin (GAB). The GAB is the world's largest underground water source. It is very important for fresh water in Australia's dry areas, but many people don't know about it. Ely created a large floor map of the GAB. It shows water flow, springs, cities, and importantly, coal, gas, and oil sites that could pollute the basin.

Art Shows and Collections

Bonita Ely's art has been shown around the world. This includes major art events like documenta14 in Germany and Greece. Her work has also been displayed at the Tate Gallery in London, the Paris Museum in France, and the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Seoul, Korea.

In 2024, her art pieces "C20th Mythological Beasts: at Home with the Locust People" and "Interior Decoration" were part of the Biennale of Sydney. "Interior Decoration" explores how PTSD can affect families for generations. In the 2022 Biennale of Sydney, she performed "Slip Slap", which focused on plastic pollution.

Ely's experimental artworks are in important international collections. These include the Tate Museum in London, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra. Her work has also been chosen for major art events like Fieldwork, which was the opening of the Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia in Melbourne. She has also created three public sculptures for the City of Huế, Vietnam.

Public Sculptures in Huế, Vietnam

In 1998, Ely was asked to create a public sculpture for the Children's Cultural Centre in Huế, Vietnam. Her artwork looks like a hollow haystack. It reminds people of the conical stacks of rice "hay" used for cooking fires in the fields around Huế. The sculpture has three arch-shaped entrances, about one meter high, perfect for children. Its barrel-shaped base acts like a sound chamber, collecting sounds from around it. Small holes in the top let soft light into the inside. The sculpture is made from traditional bricks from the Huế Citadel. This shows old cultural materials and practices.

Ely's second public sculpture in Huế, called Longevity: Scissors and Sickles (2002), was inspired by Huế's symbols for long life. Local blacksmiths made scissors and sickles, which were then joined together in a pattern. This created a 3D version of a longevity symbol. It was shaped like a gourd, and the scrap metal used included pieces from the American War.

In 2006, Ely was invited back for Huế's 4th International Sculpture Symposium. Here, she created a 6-meter steel tube sculpture that glows in the dark. It's called Lake Thunder. The sculpture's location at Thuy Tien Lake is important. It brings to mind old Taoist ideas about how different parts of nature connect to our inner selves.

documenta14 Art Show

Bonita Ely was chosen to represent Australia at documenta14 in 2017. She showed her art pieces Interior Decoration in Kassel, Germany, and Plastikus Progressus in Athens, Greece.

Interior Decoration explores how PTSD (a type of stress from very difficult experiences) can affect families for many generations.

The Interior Decoration art piece was set up inside the Palais Bellevue, a home-like setting. It shows how untreated PTSD, like that suffered by war veterans or refugees, can affect families. The art uses everyday objects to mix military and home life. For example, "Sewing Machine Gun" is made from a sewing machine and bobby pins, shaped like a machine gun. This makes people think about how these objects can have different meanings. Bedroom furniture is turned inside out to look like tunnels or hiding places. A "Watchtower" made from a marriage bed watches over everything. The art makes viewers feel like they are transported back to childhood, inviting them to explore its many layers. Around the room, there is a visual story about trauma. It also lists the names of Jewish people from Kassel who were deported and killed during World War II. This art piece reminds us that PTSD is a common cause of conflict and suffering.

The art piece Plastikus Progressus was shown in Athens. It focuses on how littering causes plastic pollution in our water. The artwork is set in the year 2054 and looks like a natural history museum display. It features creatures that eat plastic, made from vacuum cleaner parts Ely found. These creatures are imagined to be genetically engineered to clean up plastic in oceans and rivers. The display also includes photos of nature from 1905, when the first plastic was invented. It shows how rivers in Athens, Kassel, and Sydney in 2017 had plastic pollution flowing towards the ocean. A timeline from 2000 BC to 2054 AD shows how nations rise and fall, ending in 2054 with oceans full of swirling plastic. Each genetically modified creature is described on a touch screen and on the Plastikus Progressus website.

Other Artworks

In 2010, Bonita Ely created a public artwork to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Sydney's "Green Olympics." This piece, called Thunderbolt, is made from a recycled windmill. It uses solar energy to light up. The sculpture's lights change color (green, yellow, red) to show how much energy the neighborhood is using at night.

These environmental artworks are inspired by Ely's research into how different cultures connect with the land. She studied Aboriginal "Song Lines" in Australia, which are stories woven across the land. These stories help people navigate, find food, hunt, and understand the seasons. She also looked at Hindu stories in India, Chinese and Japanese gardens, and old European beliefs where the landscape had deep meaning. Her art piece Juggernaut, shown in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Bangladesh, brought these ideas to life. It featured giant, spiraling turns that seemed both strong and delicate.

Personal Life

Around 1981, Bonita Ely met Sydney artist Marr Grounds. They were both asked to take part in an artist exchange with artists from Toronto, Canada. They later had a daughter together. She was born in Berlin while Marr Grounds was an artist-in-residence there.

See also

In Spanish: Bonita Ely para niños