Stereotypically, Sydney-siders are like their city, hot and sassy, fast and loose. Encouraged by seemingly endless months of mild weather and a ubiquitous beach culture malleable bodies are sculpted and shaped through diet, exercise and surgery, bronzed by sun and salon, primped, preened and overly exposed. In Sydney bodies are on display as frequently and as brazenly as possible. In this sexy city body adornment has been distilled to its most essential element, the body itself. Which is not to say that Sydney 's citizens go completely unadorned, but by and large they seem more interested in showing off their wealth and status in conspicuous displays of flesh, fashion, fast cars and mobile gadgets. A tightly packed set of family jewels holds more social weight than antique heirloom trinkets and contemporary jewellery barely gets a look it.
Personally I blame the weather, and while I may be on thin ice for constructing a wild theory based on a hot climate, the fact remains that despite being Australia 's largest and most cosmopolitan city, Sydney cannot seem to maintain a dedicated contemporary jewellery gallery. Our latest one, galleryonefivesix, finished trading on Christmas eve 2004 after a brief but brilliant four years. But things are better for our colder neighbours. Melbourne has several galleries dedicated exclusively to supporting cutting edge jewels including: Gallery Funaki, Studio Ingot and eg etal, which is not only thriving, but has expanded with a second stylish retail outlet. Across the Tasman in even colder New Zealand , Auckland has been home to Fingers, one of the longest running contemporary jewellery galleries in the world, for over 30 years. While Dunedin , in the country's deep frigid south, manages to support both Fluxes and Lure with a relatively small population. However, despite the adverse conditions of a good climate and limited venues, Sydney 's contemporary jewellers continue to produce dynamic and thought provoking work.
The exhibition Transposition is an outstanding recent example. Under the guidance of curator Rhana Devenport and local historian Shirley Fitzgerald, jewellers Joungmee Do, Brenda Factor, Rohan Nicol, Sean O'Connell and Alice Whish have examined the rich history of Pyrmont, one of Sydney 's inner city suburbs.
Alice Whish's small sculpture, Quarter Boat, marks the point of impact between Pyrmont's indigenous inhabitants and white colonisation. Her delicate silver boat is constructed from flowers, an image which at first seems innocent and whimsical. Whish has researched native plants but her 5 petaled blossoms are generic, they could represent any flower, or all flowers . And significantly these blooms have sharp protruding spikes, like an aggressive species ready to take root. This object is a reminder that colonisation was an invasion, a brutal act perpetrated not only by white men and women, but by foreign plants, animals and diseases. This lethal combination decimated the indigenous people, flora and fauna of Australia and radically changed the shape of its ancient landscape.
Joungmee Do has examined the decorative built environment from the Victorian era. In her House , she has created a small structure of plaster walls with a roof, door and windows made from intricately pierced and precisely textured mild steel screens. These ornate grills obviously reference the iron lacework of Pyrmont's Victorian terraces. But Do's decorative floral screens, with their pattern of vines and birds, also transform this homey structure into a cage. Do's House and her House Key Plates are a reminder of the stultifying social mores of that era which kept women of the upper classes captive within the domestic space (like exotic birds with their lacy plumage) while their poorer sisters were bound to a life of household drudgery.
Sean O'Connell examines the inter-relationship between Pyrmont's landscape and industry. Gleaming stainless steel buildings are seamlessly integrated into his cast iron replica of the Pyrmont peninsula; they seem to belong. A slice cut through this small sculpture, viewed though a magnifying glass, reveals that the buildings are linked to the ground by smears of gold that probe the earth like roots and seem to pulse with energy. O'Connell has trapped tiny ball bearings and springs within this subterranean world, miniature versions of the mechanisms he uses in his slick kinetic rings. In O'Connell's work there is a certain harmony between the organic and the mechanical and an acknowledgement that all industrial components, no matter how clean, cold or hard, have natural beginnings.
Brenda Factor also looks at Pyrmont's industrial past, but without a shred of nostalgia. She replicates a series of massive nuts and bolts then deliberately feminises this stereotypically masculine from. By casting bolts in silicon rubber they become pink and floppy. In her mini-installation Soft Poke they are literally unable to maintain their erections. Factor's useless nuts and bolts are symbolic, they represent the triumph of brains over brawn and put cheeky spin on the increasing redundancy of manual labour in our high-tech age.
Rohan Nicol's carved bone brooches were inspired by the art deco lines of the Pyrmont incinerator, a veritable temple for trash designed by Walter and Marion Burliegh Griffin. This opulent building resembled an ancient Assyrian ziggurat and was lavishly decorated. But in 1992, after standing idle since 1971, this architectural icon was demolished to make way for a mediocre block of flats. Nicol's pieces highlight Pyrmont's decisive late 20 th century shift from blue collar work place to white collar bedroom burb.
Despite (or perhaps because of) the apparent disinterest of Sydney 's population in their work, these 5 contemporary jewellers have successfully used a section of the city itself as the inspiration for new work. Pyrmont was an apt choice. It is home to one of Sydney 's more tenacious contemporary jewellery spaces, Pyrmont Studios, which is currently managed by dedicated JMGA NSW volunteers. And having gone through several incarnations, from 19 th century worker's cottages, to semi-derelict squats in the 1980s, and finally to a jewellery workshop as part of an inner city gentrification project, the studios themselves are representative of Sydney's urban trends; a perpetual cycle of construction and destruction, growth and decay.
Tracey Clement is an artist, writer and jeweller who loves Sydney and its good weather.
Last modified 01-Feb-2005
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