This week, we celebrate the release of New Exuberance: Contemporary Australian Textile Design, curated and edited by Meryl Ryan.
Post written by Polly Grant Butler
As someone who has adored clothes their whole life, I strongly believe fashion is an art form. Most of my memories revolve around the outfits I wore during certain periods of my life. Playing in the sandpit in a pink tie-dye tee with pink velvet flares (1998). En route to school camp in fishnet stockings worn, shockingly, over a pair of jeans (2007). In later years, my choices became more subtle, but I still have endless notes on my phone with outfit ideas, and nothing brings me quite as much joy as finding the perfect item at the op shop.
There is an art, also, in a beautifully made curtain, or a printed patch of linen, or a bedazzled handbag. Textile design is one of those interesting practices that, like architecture, often involves both an aesthetic and functional approach. Every day, you must put on an outfit in order to avoid being arrested and, I guess, to protect yourself against the elements. Every day, therefore, is an opportunity to be creative.
Left: Iordanes Spyridon Gogos, Look 25 and Look 26, Runway AAFW21, 2021.
Right: Rhondell Williams and Letisha Gabori showcasing felt works by Grace Lillian Lee and Mirndiyan Gununa artists, 2015. Photo Grace Lillian Lee.
Textiles, of course, extends beyond that which you wear. In the blurb for New Exuberance textile design is described as a ‘boundary blurring creative field’ that ‘by nature, cross-pollinates’. This beautifully put-together book accompanies New Exuberance, the touring exhibition curated by Meryl Ryan in consultation with the JamFactory. The book also includes contributions by Clare Press, Shannon Brett and Stephen Goddard.
Left: North Bondi Dream Apartment Glamour Sack by Frida Las Vegas. Photo by Charles Grant.
Right: Paul McCann in Sovereignty Cloak and Crown, viewing his Gumnut, ball gown, 2021. Photo Liz Sunshine, 2022. Courtesy NGV.
As Meryl writes in her introduction to the book, textile design moves through ‘graphic, furniture and product design, fashion and the visual arts’ and ‘encompasses a rich breadth of approaches and expressions of identity’. Both the exhibition and the book offer a diverse mix of perspectives, from First Nations artist Grace Lillian Lee, Indigenous textile enterprise Bábbarra Women’s Centre, as well as collaborations with fashion-labels such as Romance Was Born and Verner.
Kate Just, Another World Is Possible, 2021. Photo Simon Strong.
Attending the exhibition/book launch with Michael Bollen and Julia Beaven, who published and copyedited the book respectively, I found myself enthralled by both the art that surrounded me and the outfits worn by the other attendees. On the walls and the guests, I saw so many textures and shapes and colours and styles, and I thought about how incredible people can be, their ability to make and create.
Raylene Bonson and Genevieve Smith printing Lucy Yarawanga’s design Bawáliba (Stone Country Mimih), 2018
Oh yeah, sunsets are great, I considered later walking home, while the sky wove threads of pink into silky orange. But it’s the way we interpret the world around us that is usually more interesting to me. The stories we tell, the art and the books we produce.
New Exuberance the exhibition is showing at JamFactory in Gallery One until 23 April 2023, before it sets sail on its regional gallery tour.
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