Ellen Pitman ‘Body to Body’ @ Lord Coconut

I think that ‘Body to Body‘, an exhibition by Ellen Pitman, is the first solo artist exhibition at Lord Coconut.

The majority of the exhibition are belt buckles, cast in various metals (though I understand custom orders are welcome in other metals).

exhibition media

Exhibition media: “Objects presented in ‘Body to Body’ replicate the surface of butchered meat, replacing blood for precious metal.  The material juxtaposition cushions the viewer from implicit horror, removing stains of reality: flesh, fluid, death; not unlike the process used by the meat industry to emotionally sanitise the consumption of meat.“

It sounds worse than it looks … well, I was just a little worried initially (being of a delicate constitution!), but the textures are interesting in their own right. If you’re squeamish though, you may not like to know their origin.

The (human) belly button buckles are absolutely delightful; I like the idea of someone walking about fully dressed with a belly button belt buckle.

‘Body to Body‘ is at Lord Coconut until 1st December 2012.

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ps. This is by no means a trivial question, but I’m not sure if belt buckles are jewellery or silversmithing? Not that it’s entirely necessary to label objects and making processes, it’s only a matter of which categories this post includes (helps with people finding posts etc) … What do you think? I used both categories for now…

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Artifice Store’s first event

Oopsy, I didn’t see this in time for the Calendar post, so this gets its own post.

Artifice is a new jewellery (and home and object) store opened by Jessica Morrison, Coconut Lu and Matthew Bracken – and they have a store event on this weekend.

event media; used with permission

Event media: “Melbourne jewellery artists Jessica Morrison, Matthew Bracken and Coconut Lu would like to introduce their new venture (or as it would seem, adventure!) Artifice store.  A retail avenue for Australian artists, designers and makers to air their wares. With an eye for the quirky, playful and beautiful, this space offers up all things awesome with a focus to bring artful goods into every ones world.

To celebrate their entrance into the merchant sphere, the threesome will join forces with Graphic Designer Simon Browne for a two day event ‘Infinite repeat’.  The Artifice team would like to invite you down to see what magic happens when the four collide and turn Browne’s paintings into wearable art.

This event will produce Artifice store’s first collaborative product.”

I wish them the absolute best of luck and trust it’ll be a super event!

NMIT ‘Kaleidoscope’ @ Northcote Town Hall

By serendipity I found myself in Northcote earlier today, so popped in to see ‘Kaleidoscope‘, the NMIT graduate (Advanced Diploma of Engineering Technology (Jewellery), 2yrs) exhibition.

photograph taken with student representative permission

There are some highly technical constructions here, and much shiny-ness(?), and quite a lot to like.

It’s a shame there weren’t take home works-lists – it would have made it easier to remember everyone’s work and a good keepsake.

Again enameling made a strong appearance. Also, I noticed some more Choum Iybsa than I’d seen in previous years, so wonder if that was a new skill taught during the course or if the students found their own way to the technique…

photograph taken with student representative permission

Participating artists are (as per media listing):

• Emily Becher [blog]
• Olivia Boyle
• Anita Crowther [remember her splendid neckpiece at last year’s auction?]
• Jo Hawley – I really liked the formality and simplicity of her work, the forms were beautiful
• Annelies Hofmeyr [update: site] – her enameled cloud sculptures were lovely and very well executed
• Sarah Johnson – her construction looks amazingly complex!
• Sarah Kerr [facebook]
• Maria Natoli [facebook]
• Sophie Prestige
• Maryam Satar
• Alannah Sheridan
• Yuan Yuan Xi [update: facebook]
• Sylvia Ballerini [facebook]
• Amber Craven
• Jacques Cudis
• Rachael Fares [update: facebook]
• Qiaojian (Hannah) He
• Kieran Jackson
• Felicity Large [update: site]
• Tess McAuslan-King
• Caroline McQueen [site]
• Niamh Minogue – I liked her enameled pendants so much I bought the dark blue one (after this photograph!); I loved how these were displayed, a mixture between museum layout and Warwick Freeman-esk investigation group – much to love
  

  photograph taken with student representative permission; sorry it’s dark, I didn’t use flash

• Louise Napolitano
• Ann O’Connor
• Elizabeth Rich
• Massimo Todaro
• Katrina van Domburgh [tumblr]
• Kim White
• Lisa Williams
• Nicole Smith

There’s a lot to like – get along.
If you’re interested, check out my post on last year’s exhibition ‘Auteur‘.
Also check out Jessica Helen’s post, with the award listing too.

One curious matter is the lack of internet presence of these artists … something I’ll expand on in another post soon.

‘Kaleidoscope‘ is at Northcote Town Hall until 25th November 2012, open weekends too.

RMIT ‘As Above, So Below’ @ Victorian Artists’ Society

So glad The Victorian Artists’ Society exhibition space is open on a weekend, otherwise I may not have seen this show.

‘As Above, So Below’ is the exhibition of students graduating from RMIT University Object-Based Practice; this is the new name for the old degrees that were Gold & Silversmithing and Ceramics.

photograph taken with student-representative permission

The exhibition is divided between two spacious rooms in the utterly lovely building. The work is mixed – each room had ceramics and smithing pieces. To my mind, this mixture didn’t work well. I understand the intent was probably to reinforce the combination of the two disciplines under the same umbrella at RMIT, but I felt the dialogue that exists between all the ceramic works and all the smithing works respectively was interrupted. I would have strongly suggested using each room for each discipline, but that’s just my opinion.

There were posters saying that photographs were not permitted, however one of the student-body representatives gallery-sitting the exhibition advised it was fine to take photographs of their exhibition … just in case you were wondering.

photograph taken with student-representative permission

Participating students are:

• Ally McNaughton [hibernating blog]: very much liked her work!
• Anna Gibbs
• Annie Gobel [hibernating blog]
• Bethwyn Mell
• Bin Dixon-Ward (honours) [website]: in the foreground of the above image
• Chris Massey
• Danica Moorecroft
• Danli (Lena) Sun
• Elise Sheehan [blog – with some great images]
• Erin Dixon (honours, ceramics)
• Esther Konings-Oakes (ceramics)
• Esther Weinberg
• Eve Hudson (ceramics)
• Jacqui Rae (ceramics)
• Janetta Kerr-Grant (ceramics): fabulously confident ceramic vessels with amazing glazes
• Katie-Jayne Britchford (honours) [blog]: made me sad I missed the larger scale exhibition of her ‘Heart of Stone’ collection
• Laure Bonneville (ceramics)
• Lesley Walsh (ceramics)
• Lindy McSwan [hibernating blog]: her smithing vessels were absolutely stunning, my favourite of the show
• Lucinda Knight [blog]
• Meaghan Cavanagh (ceramics)
• Rojda Ova (ceramics)
• Romy Sweetnam
• San Young ‘Kusi’ Kim
• Stephen Robb [blog]: really interesting ‘Cell’ pieces
• Thomas O’Hara: fantastic sets of brooches, especially liked the mild steel ones
• Varuni Kanagasundaram (ceramics)

‘As Above, So Below‘ is at The Victoria Artists’ Society until 19th November 2012.