Craft + Design Canberra warmly invites you to join Oliver Smith, Holly Grace and Julie Bradley for pre-exhibition artist talks.

5.30pm - 6pm Thursday 21 March 2024.

Please note the opening for the exhibitions will commence at 6pm following the artist talks.

TALISMAN, TOOL AND TOUCHSTONE

Artist | Oliver Smith

This solo exhibition of contemporary metal work was created as part of the practice-based component of Dr. Smith's PhD, drawing on the long tradition of animal symbolism crafted in metal, drawing on archaeology, anthropology, and a particular Nordic worldview and comprises of four suites of work:

Periapts - A series of pendants exploring the origins of adornment and the zoomorphic root of representation;
Manifest Destiny - A group of small sculptures expressing ideas contained in the legend of Sigurd the Dragon Slayer;
Stone, Bone, Iron - A series of small sculptures looking at the Three Age System and material agency in combination with animal symbolism;
and Elemental Arc and the Vital Vector - A collection of coins.

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2023 Artist-in-Residence Exhibition | South Facing

The 2023 Artist-in-Residence exhibition showcases the work of Julie Bradley and Holly Grace completed as part of the annual Craft + Design Canberra Artist-in-Residence program at Gudgenby Ready-Cut Cottage in the Namadgi National Park, following a two week research component at the National Portrait Gallery of Australia.

Presented in partnership with ACT Parks and Conservation Service and The National Portrait Gallery of Australia.

Holly Grace

Holly Grace has developed a new body of work based on based on concepts on self-portraiture and portraits of a place, themes initially developed at the National Portrait Gallery the collaborative partner for the 2023 residency. During her time in Namadgi she created a digital catalogue of over 5000 photographs and videos. She recorded sounds through a series of blown glass sound receptors based on the inner ear structures of birds and humans. These glass receptors became her acoustic horns, small resonant structures to receive and project nature’s soundscape built from the songs of birds, crickets, frogs, the gentle rush of water and the rustle of wind through eucalyptus leaves and snow grass.

Holly Grace is represented by Beaver Galleries

Julie Bradley

Being immersed in the Namadgi National Park, cut off from daily distractions, Julie Bradley made connections to the sparse high country of the Gudgenby Valley through her drawings. Her works in the exhibition represent emotional responses to the quiet, open country, its unique landscape and the time passed in contemplation. Working in gouache and collage, Bradley layered her experiences of the intense cold, the silent evenings, the subtle lines and forms of the boulders scattered around and the pure colours that when closely observed, are present in the sky, water, plants and stones of the valley.

Image: Oliver Smith