Peaches + Keen ‘The Hanging Garden’ @ Craft Vic

Peaches + Keen latest show, ‘The Hanging Garden‘, in the window of Craft Victoria, is gorgeous.

Joyful. Colourful.

The Hanging Garden

There are enamelled vessels and hama-bead jewellery from Lucy Hearn.
There are embellished prints from Lily Daley.
There is a large terrarium; crocheted hanging planters; and new beaded hanging planters (I loved them!!).

The Hanging Garden

I only managed to see the window on a public holiday, and so wasn’t able to pop inside – which I really want to do soon, as I want to see the book they’ve made too (the open pages in the window are lovely!).

The Hanging Garden

Make sure you check out their blogs … so much to love.

‘The Hanging Garden‘ is at Craft Victoria until 5th May 2012.

A few more images below….

Nicholas Bastin ‘The Sleepless Hero’ @ Craft Victoria

My first impression, upon walking into Nicholas Bastin’s ‘The Sleepless Hero‘ exhibition at Craft Victoria [link], was ‘wow’.

The exhibition design is fabulous – “the jewellery objects are installed on diagrammatic depictions of the body. The original characters have long gone – dead, and all that remains are the remnants that ‘recount’ these characters …” [exhibition media]

image taken with gallery permission

The pieces I enjoyed the most were those made for “The Time Traveller” – especially ‘Emblem‘ and ‘Round Container with Mountain and Colour‘, left and right respectively in the image below. The scale is powerful and the colours, though riotous, are perfectly balanced.

image taken with gallery permission

Nicholas has also made collections of remnants for four other characters:

• “Wolfe”: four buttons and a lucky foot charm
• “Styromancer”: strange pieces … including one ‘Styrene Behemoth‘, a title which made sense given its scale
• “Black Sparrow”: pieces with mostly feather iconography
• “The Hidden Princess”: again, feathers; though also including the ‘Painted Mountain with Hidden Dragon Egg‘ (as seen in much of the exhibition media)

The drawn linear personalities on the wall certainly put the pieces into a context and tell an extra part of their story – I thought it was a brilliant presentation idea.

Nicholas Bastin’s ‘The Sleepless Hero‘ is at Craft Victoria until 21st April.

‘Fresh!’ 2011 @ Craft Victoria

It’s that time of year again – time to visit Craft Victoria to see the selected art graduate works at ‘Fresh!’.

photograph with permission

The aesthetic was quite different to last year – there seemed more installation focussed work, and much less colour than I would have expected of a group exhibition. It was surprising to me actually.

image with permission

Artists selected to participate are (alphabetically):

• Matthew Benjamin (VCA, Photography)
• Dan Bowran (Monash, Glass)
• Hannah Chamley (RMIT, Fashion)
• Jia Jia Ji Chen (RMIT, Ceramics); right below
• Allona Goren (RMIT, Gold & Silversmithing); left above
• John Gosper (RMIT, Fashion)
• Elly Hall (Monash, Photomedia)
• Lisa Imai (VCA, Sculpture / Spatial practice)
• Wendy Korol (RMIT, Gold & Silversmithing); right above – overall winner
• Sophie Moorhouse Morris (RMIT, Ceramics); left below
• Rosina Prestia (Monash, Sculpture)
• Nellie Rogerson (Monash, Painting)

image with permission

Last year’s exhibition post is here.

‘Fresh!‘ 2011 is at Craft Victoria until 23rd December 2011.

Melbourne jewellery galleries and artists: part 1

PART 1 ——————————————————————————–

I’ve been thinking about this for a little while … the relationships between the key Melbourne jewellery galleries / retail spaces and the artists they stock.

For each of the below galleries (in alphabetic order) I went looking for a page on their websites showing a full listing of the artists whose work they represent. Not as standard as I actually expected – a bit surprised really.

• Alice Euphemia – a ‘jewellery page‘ but this may not be all their artists?
• Black Finch – no artist page
• Craft Victoria – there is a accredited member list, but is this actually an artist listing of represented artists? (the example I’d use is that I didn’t see Elfrun Lach or Karla Way here but I thought they has work at Craft Vic?)
• e.g.etal – no artist listing / page
• Gallery Funaki – artist page, links to biographies
• Lord Coconut – only a text listing (not a bio on each)
• Pieces of Eight – a page for each artist
• Self Preservation – no artist listing / page
• Small Space – a page for each artist
• Studio Ingot – artist page, links to biographies

From seeing which artists are with which galleries, it looks on the surface that artist agreements with these galleries are not strictly exclusive.

Some examples are below. I haven’t chosen these artists for any other reason than I likely love their work and therefore remember them in each gallery (note though, these may not be the only galleries they have work in):

• Anna Davern: Alice Euphemia & e.g.etal & lots as per her stockist list
• Darren Harvey: Black Finch & e.g.etal & Studio Ingot (complete list on his site)
• David Neale: Gallery Funaki & his own online store
• Julia deVille: Alice Euphemia & e.g.etal & lots as per her stockist list
• Justin Austen: Lord Coconut & Pieces of Eight
• Katherine Bowman: e.g.etal & Studio Ingot & her own online store coming soon
• Karla Way: Pieces of Eight & Craft Victoria (and many others, as per her site)
• Lucy Hearn: Studio Ingot & Craft Victoria and her own online store
• Sue Ewington: Small Space & Self Preservation (complete listing on her site)
• Suzie Zutic: Black Finch & Pieces of Eight (complete listing on her site)

So it’s pretty clear we have a pretty amazing group of galleries in Melbourne that are okay with giving artists a greater chance of making a living by being stocked in a number of locations (and not locking them in exclusively).

The only possible exception to that is Gallery Funaki … I think … I thought their artists were exclusive, though the David Neale example has confused me.

Also, I vaguely remember being told that Alice Euphemia had ‘exclusive-range’ requirements of artists – though I’m not sure that’s the case for the above artists, so maybe the arrangement is artist-specific?

I also thought some of the other galleries prefer a separate or exclusive group of pieces / collection from the artist; so that it is unique to their retail space.

So to be sure I had the correct information, I wrote to each gallery to ask.

…

So all of the above text was written before contacting any of the galleries. I wanted to keep it unedited, as it shows the thought process of this post.

Also, while researching the above, I remembered the first post I wrote on this kind of topic earlier this year – it is still relevant and I’d like to expand on it a little further in this post too.

PART 2 coming tomorrow—————————————————————–

Katherine Bowman ‘Locutions’ @ Craft Victoria

Speechless.

Katherine Bowman‘s exhibition ‘Locutions (the loved object)‘ at Craft Victoria left me lost for words.

photograph taken with gallery permission

Exhibition media: “Poetry and craftsmanship in artist’s new exhibition, two years in the making

locution n. 1. a particular form of expression; a phrase or expression. 2. a style of speech or verbal expression; phraseology. (from Latin locutio an utterance, from locui to speak)

Katherine Bowman’s new work examines the way we imbue objects and artefacts with meaning. Through a series of small box like vessels, themes of containment, secrecy, talismanic power and personal mythology come together to create a collection of mysterious and quiet pieces that draw the viewer in like a small poem. Pulling inspiration from sources as diverse as Federico Garcia Lorca, Jean Baudrillard and Nick Cave, these intricately decorated boxes not only provide a secret space to carry one’s true self but a shelter for the vulnerable heart and the spirit animus.“

photograph taken with gallery permission

I appreciated, and understood the artist process better by, the accompaniment of the objects with the watercolour paintings – I am baffled by, and admire, artists who paint and then make from the paintings (another who comes to mind is Hermann Junger) … I find it amazing!

The objects spoke to me more than the paintings though … incredible. Three of the five especially made their presence felt strongly:

• untitled (amulet box) – see Katherine’s post; left in above images
• untitled (3 sided box) – see Katherine’s post; third from left in above images    
• untitled (3 wine cups) – see Katherine’s post; below

photograph taken with gallery permission

I am absolutely in love with the white wine cup above … I dearly wanted to take it home, though the three are a group to stay together. They endear themselves even more for their reference of embroidery, a long-time love of mine too. They are engraved on the outer sides, which cannot be seen above, but can be in images on Katherine’s blog – beautiful.

The objects on a simple table is a beautiful presentation; though I was a little unsure of the wood colour and grain against the surfaces and beauty of the objects … though I must admit to not being able to offer an alternative. Though that said, I can see that the plain simplicity of the unadorned wood could be seen as a foil for the objects too … so perhaps it’s just a matter of difference in aesthetics (and/or my misunderstanding of the connection).

photograph taken with gallery permission

Regular readers will know how much I admire Katherine and her work … though it still surprises me that no matter how much I respect and admire and covet the works of an artist, I still find it difficult to connect with representation of animals! It’s just weird to me, I’m not sure why it’s a problem … though I have written about it a number of times before.

Katherine’s sensitivity and respect of the artistic process translate so well from jewellery into objects – I’m so happy she has a place to show her exhibition, and I congratulate her on the beautiful work. The connections are clear to the work I remember seeing of hers when I was still at RMIT in my degree and she was having her masters show (I think?) at Craft Vic – black embossed containers / houses.

It is absolutely worth making time to see this exhibition.

‘Locutions (the loved object)‘ is at Craft Victoria until 15th October 2011;
and there is an artist floor talk at 2pm on 8th October 2011.

Update (30th September): see also the post on Craft Victoria blog

Craft Hatch: August 2011

The recent Saturday was spent with a lovely friend wandering into the city to visit Craft Hatch super-duper August market.

Ooh – it was such fun.

I came home with the following:

• beautiful porcelain bowl and cup from Sophie Harle – just incredibly gorgeous and tactile and crying out to be held in the palm of your hand(s)
  

  ceramics by Sophie

• a total fabulous card from The Gently Unfurling Sneak … I love these designs, and I have a t-shirt with their bird-cage lady on it that is a favourite (and a collectors item I find, now they’re not producing them any more …)
• a cute little owl brooch from Tiger & Hare …. shhh, don’t tell, but they’re a present … hopefully said friend (no, not the one I went to the market with) won’t read this blog beforehand, because I think she’d know who I talking about … make sense?
  

  brooch and card ... yes, they're to go together

I hope the market was a success for all who were there. Yay Craft Victoria [again! still!].