Opening night: The Antipodean Steampunk Show

On Thursday the 25th of October, we proudly unveiled our new exhibition, The Antipodean Steampunk Show.  

Showcasing all manner of Steampunk ingenuity, including jewellery, photography, fashion, lighting and technology, this exhibition is our final show for 2012. 

Opening night was attended by an eclectic mix of artisan regulars as well as Steampunk enthusiasts. There were some fabulous outfits on display, both on the mannequins and in the audience! A few were captured in the photographs below, and you can view more photos in our Facebook album.

The Antipodean Show will be running until the 15th of December. 

 

Photographs taken for artisan by Sarah-Jean Young and Melinda Gagen.

Artisan goes Steampunk

What:       The Antipodean Steampunk Show
Where:    Gallery artisan, 381 Brunswick Street, Fortitude Valley
When:      Friday 26 October - Saturday 15 December
  
After what feels like an eternity of waiting, it's finally the opening week of The Antipodean Steampunk Show, our biggest and final exhibition for the year.

The exhibition will launch this Thursday evening, and will be open to the public from Friday.

So, what is Steampunk?

Born in literature in the 1980s in response to the sci-fi ‘Cyberpunk’ genre, 'Steampunk' merged Victorian styling with contemporary technology and invention to create a genre so visually rich, it soon transcended the page.

These days, the influence of Steampunk can be found in film and fashion, as well as in the workshops of scores of hobbyist tinkerers and professional artists alike. 

The Steampunk movement rails against the modern obsession with upgrade and improvement by using elaborate craftsmanship to transform mass produced - and easily discarded - contemporary products into unique objects of desire.

Even if this is the first time you have heard the word 'Steampunk', you have probably seen its influence in films such as Sherlock Holmes, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, The Golden Compass, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Stardust, Hellboy, and The Illusionist to name a few.

The Antipodean Steampunk Show is bursting at the seams with fantastical items such as ray guns, tea bag jigglers, time machines, jewellery, rocket packs, and even a Victoriana peepshow. 

To attend Thursday night's opening event, please RSVP to info@artisan.org.au. Otherwise, we hope to see you at the gallery during the duration of the exhibition!

 

Shin Koyama at BCM's Crucible Gallery

Opening Night ‘Emaki-Modern’ by Shin Koyama

BCM Crucible Gallery

4 October 2012

BCM recently welcomed guests to the Opening Night of the latest exhibition in Crucible Gallery. 

Crucible Gallery is a unique gallery space, come meeting room housed within the offices of Brisbane-based advertising agency BCM. 

Artisan formed a partnership with BCM in 2011 which involves the curation of a number of exhibitions in the Crucible Gallery space to showcase the best of Queensland craft and design artists, as well as an Emerging Curator program.  

The Emerging Curator program develops the talents of an emerging arts curator under the guidance of the artisan team, and the program was recently recognised in the Australia Council’s Young and Emerging Artists category of the AbaF Queensland Awards.  The program will now compete in the AbaF National Awards later this month.

The artisan/BCM partnership is helping to develop future arts leaders, support Queensland’s craft and design community, and also provides exhibition opportunities for Queensland’s talented artists. 

Miriam Carter recently took up the role of BCM Emerging Curator and ‘Emaki-Modern’ is the first of the exhibitions that she has curated in Crucible Gallery on behalf of artisan. 

Drawing on the Japanese traditions of ‘Emaki-Mono’ (picture scrolls), ‘Shunga’ (erotic woodblock prints), ‘Manga’ (comic animation), and themes of historical events, cultures and people, Japanese born, Brisbane-based artist Shin Koyama transforms these art forms into distinctive and dynamic artworks for contemporary times.  The collection of ceramics, scrolls, paintings and print work on show in Crucible uniquely showcase the artist’s cheeky sense of humour and mischief.

Dr Craig Douglas of QCA and the artist provided BCM’s Opening Night guests with an entertaining insight into the many themes and inspirations behind Shin’s vibrant and uniquely individual artworks. 

Visitors to BCM, their clients and agency staff will be enjoying the ‘Emaki-Modern’ exhibition over the next month.

All works on display are courtesy of Shin Koyama and Jan Manton Art.

Crucible Gallery hours are by appointment.  

Photographs kindly supplied by BCM.

New exhibition - Long Play: The Glory Days of the 12" Album Cover

We've been busy little bees in the gallery this week removing the Reboot displays and installing Long Play: The Glory Days of the 12" Album Cover.

The new exhibition is coming together beautifully and everything is looking fantastic for opening night tomorrow from 6pm.

Long Play is a graphic design exhibition focusing on album cover design from circa 1950 to the late 1980s. Over 150 records will be on display and most of them will also be for sale so get in quick to nab your favourite!

The exhibition includes covers by famous artists, interactive covers, and controversial covers, including the banned original 'butcher's shop' cover for the Beatles Yesterday and Today.

Along with Long Play, tomorrow night will also see the launch of Sherrie Knipe's Waterlogged in Gallery Two, new Window Projects by QUT design students, the Ivory Street installation by Shin Koyama, new product Bio Bin by Alison Schutt (Haasch) and bureau^proberts, and retail feature designer Joost Bakker's 'By Joost' homewares range.

Melbourne exhibition: Kindness/Urdata: Australia-India Cultural Exchange

Those in Melbourne are invited to drop by the RMIT Gallery to see Kindness/Udarta: Australia-India Cultural Exchange.
 
117 artists and writers have contributed to this exhibition, which celebrates 20 years of Australia-India Council Cultural Projects. The exhibition is currently on display and closes on August 5.
 
An evening of literature, visual art, and music will be held on 2 August 6-8pm to celebrate 20 years of the Australia–India Council’s cultural program (details below). Please RSVP to (03) 9925 1717 or rmit.gallery@rmit.edu.au.

Artist Mandy Ridley says: "The invitation to contribute to Kindness / Udarta: Australia-India Cultural Exchange was the catalyst to making new work and became an opportunity to reflect upon the great kindness I have been gifted whilst in India." There is more information about Mandy's experiences in India in the attached link: http://www.melbournereview.com.au/read/515/.

Melbourne exhibition: 'Wearable Cities' by Blanche Tilden

Wearable cities is a solo exhibition by Blanche Tilden. The exhibition will be launched on July 31 at Gallery Funaki in Melbourne from 6-8pm.

Modernism’s dreams of the future may have become the stuff of our past, but through her jewellery, Blanche Tilden recognises in its most utopian moments an idea which still has the power to enchant us: that of a building made of glass. Her pieces are not emptily nostalgic objects, however. Rather, we might read in them a new idea about our relationship with built spaces: her structures reverse the traditional idea of a building as an envelope for bodies and instead, propose a relationship in which the body carries her structures with it, a sort of talisman for a contemporary nomadic life in which the webs of glass and silver create small prisms of light, not quite material, and resonant with our own dreams of other possible futures.
Anne Brennan
Artist, writer & Head of Art Theory Workshop, ANU School of Art.
2010