Longing For Home: Painted Fragments of Landscapes Left Behind
‘Longing for Home’ Is a series of landscapes that stem from a place of grief and a yearning for home. The series follows the loss of my Grandparents, Vincent Brian McKanny and Irene Margaret McKanny, who passed away in March and October of 2024. This series is dedicated to them.
In my Grief, alone in Melbourne, I long for a place of familiarity, of comfort, I yearn for home, for Aotearoa. My home has never been a house; it has been Aotearoa itself. I wish to find Solace in the mountains and lakes that raised me, yet I have commitments that bind me here. Instead, I settle for photographs taken throughout my life in Aotearoa, and transform them into portraits of the Landscapes I long for. This project is about time and uncertainty, past, present, and future. Photos from the past, emotions from the present, and where my future in turn lies. The more I stay here, the more I feel the landscapes of Aotearoa fading, something so close and vivid in my mind, yet so far beyond my reach. The everyday landscapes I took for granted growing up now haunt me, calling me back home.
Ella McKanny is an emerging Artist born and raised in Aotearoa, New Zealand. Ella is currently based in Naarm, Melbourne, while completing her Bachelor of Fine Arts at RMIT University, but hopes to return to Aotearoa in 2026. Ella is a Skilled Oil and acrylic Painter, with a focus on Landscape and Portraiture. Ella’s work is influenced by memory, emotions, and lived experiences. The materiality of her works explores transparency and its interplay between layers within her paintings, which brings forth a contemporary feel to the Traditional subject of landscapes.
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