EXHIBITION OPENING + ARTIST TALKS
Chasing Clouds | Artist Jonathon Zalakos
Jonathon Zalakos employs motifs of cloud-like abstraction, utilising silver inlay on steel to create representational relief work as externalised models of the unconscious in a modern context. Building on his goldsmithing practice, Joanthon presents a sample of works created as the result of receiving the 2022 Craft + Design Canberra CAPO Award. The award enabled the artist to purchase hammer forming equipment which he used to explore high relief chasing and repousse - metalworking techniques that involve carefully beating both sides of metal sheet in a bowl of pitch.
Jonathon Zalakos is a contemporary jewellery and object maker based in Canberra, on Ngunnawal and Ngambri land. Jonathon seeks to integrate contemporary philosophy with traditional goldsmithing materials and techniques through his practice. He has a particular focus on the psychological influence of the designed world and considers how designers can work toward manifesting alternative, ecologically conscientious ways of being.
Since graduating from the Australian National University in 2022 Jonathon Zalakos has been the recipient of numerous awards and grants, including the ANU School of Art & Design Graduate Excellence Award, the M16 Exhibition and Residency Award, and the Robert Foster Memorial Grant. His work has been exhibited in various group and solo exhibitions. In addition to his art practice, Jonathon has experience as a research assistant and sessional lecturer at the Australian National University School of Art and Design, and currently works at the National Gallery of Australia.
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Five Dresses for Wari Goddess | Artist Ximena Briceño
Five Dresses for a Wari Goddess explores colour, materiality and iconography in fashion through an Andean lens. In the context of Andean iconography, camelids (alpacas, llamas and vicuñas) have been represented in textiles, metal works, and ceramics as a form of decoration and patterns since the Pre-Columbian period in Peru. Artist Ximena Briceño has created five dresses crafted from titanium, aluminum and cardboard using camelids as a main form of decoration, showcasing Trans-Pacific craft and skill.
Ximena Briceño’s core career interests lie in the history of art and its nexus with trade, including the fine arts and crafts, jewellery and precious metal work developed in different cultures.
Based in Canberra since 2004, she established her studio ‘Ximena Joyas’. She was awarded a PhD in Visual Arts in the Gold and Silversmithing workshop at the Australian National University’s School of Art in Canberra in 2011. She continues to make, research and to collaborate with other artisans producing small batch series of objects works creating a transpacific connection. Her current works explore diverse materials, the power and meaning of colour.
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self portrait in the Anthropocene | Artist Rebecca Selleck
Combining curved stainless-steel furniture with intricate bronze work, blown glass, living plants and bodily upholsteries, this installation of contemporary design continues Selleck’s creation of dissonant spaces that explore our increasing destruction of natural environments and the inherent hypocrisies of being human.
Rebecca Selleck has received multiple awards, including the prestigious Peter and Lena Karmel Anniversary Prize for best graduating student at the ANU School of Art, and the 2023 Lake Light Sculpture Major Prize. She has exhibited across Australia and internationally. She was a finalist in the inaugural 2017 Ramsay Art Prize at the Art Gallery of South Australia and in 2018 the Arte Laguna Prize in Venice, Italy; the Macquarie Art Prize; the Ravenswood Art Prize (Highly Commended); and the Churchie Art Prize. She participated in the 2022 Adelaide Biennial at the Art Gallery of South Australia and recently toured nationally in the Experimenta: Lifeforms - International Triennial of Media Art. Her work is held in public collections at the Art Gallery of South Australia, Art Gallery of NSW, Museum of Australian Democracy, Parkes ACT, Western Plains Cultural Centre, Dubbo NSW, Bendigo Art Gallery, VIC, and Shepparton Art Museum, VIC. She is currently working towards a permanent public artwork at the Namadgi Visitors Centre through a partnership between Craft + Design Canberra and ACT Parks and Conservation.