Eleanor Millard
“I try to paint the stillness of the now, with all its sound — the sound of silence; the sound of stillness.”
- Eleanor Millard
Eleanor Millard is a Melbourne-based artist best known for her haunting, atmospheric depictions of rural and coastal landscapes. Her paintings are marked by subtle tonal shifts, blended forms, and a quiet expressiveness that captures both the texture and memory of place. With a strong intuitive feel for medium whether working on canvas or paper Millard’s work hovers between representation and abstraction. Her compositions often feature cottages, dunes, or boatsheds that emerge from layered washes, evoking a dreamlike familiarity and the stillness of forgotten spaces. Critics have described her imagery as balanced delicately between presence and memory, with a textural quality that draws the viewer into a suspended moment in time.
Millard’s creative process is deeply meditative, unfolding slowly until each painting finds its moment of resolution. As she has noted, “Some paintings I’ll start, and then I’ll have to put them away for a few months, because they just aren’t ready to be finished” a discipline that reflects her process-driven and intuitive approach. Over more than two decades, she has exhibited widely in Melbourne, Sydney and Perth, at galleries including Salt Contemporary, Wagner Contemporary and Linton & Kay, and has received recognition in a number of major art prizes. She was a finalist in the Wynne Prize (2011), the King’s School Art Prize (2015), and the Salon des Refusés (2012), and was awarded the Kedumba Drawing Award in 2013. Her work continues to resonate for its quiet power, emotional depth, and reflective exploration of landscape as memory and feeling.
Image: Wagner Contemporary
About the Artist
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*1963, lives and works in Melbourne
Bachelor of Arts in Textile Design, RMIT
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Selected Solo Exhibitions
2025
Sound of the Coast — Linton & Kay Galleries, Perth
Papermade: Contemporary Works on Paper — Salt Contemporary Art, Queenscliff, VIC
Sound of the Coast — Wagner Contemporary at Aotearoa Art Fair, Auckland, New Zealand2024
Tides: Swan River Stories — Council House, Perth
Papermade: Contemporary Works on Paper — Salt Contemporary Art, Queenscliff, VIC2023
Now and Past — Linton & Kay Galleries, Perth2022
Sound of the Coast — Wagner Contemporary, Sydney Contemporary Art Fair, Sydney2021
Shifting — Linton & Kay Galleries, Perth2019
Now and Past — Linton & Kay Galleries, Perth2017
I Wonder — Wagner Contemporary, Sydney2016
Abstract Time — Wagner Contemporary, Sydney2015
Everyday — Salt Contemporary, Sydney2014
The Still End of the Day — Wagner Art Gallery, Sydney2013
Time Past — Wagner Art Gallery, Sydney2012
Late in the Day — Wagner Art Gallery, Sydney2010
Trading Up — Australian Galleries, Smith Street, Melbourne2009
Three Wishes — Australian Galleries, Derby Street, Melbourne2008
Suburban Gallery, Brighton, VIC2007
Suburban Gallery, Brighton, VIC2006
Interior Art Gallery, Richmond, VIC
Suburban Gallery, Brighton, VIC
Selected Group Exhibitions
2023
Salt Contemporary Art, Queenscliff, VIC
Linton & Kay Galleries, West Perth
Linton & Kay Galleries, Subiaco2022
Salt Contemporary Art, Queenscliff, VIC2021
Linton & Kay Galleries, West Perth
Linton & Kay Galleries, Subiaco2019
Linton & Kay Galleries, West Perth2018
Linton & Kay Galleries, Subiaco2017
Wagner Contemporary, Sydney2016
Wagner Art Gallery, Sydney
Wagner Contemporary, Sydney
Linton & Kay Galleries, Subiaco2015
Wagner Art Gallery, Sydney2014
Wagner Art Gallery, Sydney2013
Wagner Art Gallery, Sydney (2 exhibitions)2012
S.H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney2011
Wynne Prize — Art Gallery of New South Wales
Wagner Art Gallery, Sydney2010
Australian Galleries, Derby Street, Melbourne2009
Art Melbourne — Suburban Gallery2008
Art Sydney — Suburban Gallery
Art Melbourne — Suburban Gallery2007
Art Sydney — Suburban Gallery
Art Melbourne — Suburban Gallery2006
Art Sydney — Suburban Gallery
Art Melbourne — Suburban Gallery2005
Art Sydney — Suburban Gallery
Art Melbourne — Suburban Gallery
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Collections
Kedumba Drawing Collection
Private Collections in Australia and OverseasAwards
2015
King’s School Art Prize — Finalist2013
Kedumba Drawing Prize — Finalist2012
Salon des Refusés — Finalist2011
Wynne Art Prize — Finalist (Art Gallery of New South Wales)2010
Williamstown Art Prize — Finalist1999
Victorian Design Award — Major Winner, Textile Design
Corporate Commissions
2008
Parkview Hotel — Port Campbell, Victoria2006
Endless Solutions — South Melbourne2005
King Chrome — Melbourne
Living Edge — Richmond
114 x 135cm