Raising the Bench Mark

Posted on 20 July, 2018

Have you ever worn a soil necklace? Or carried a plant on your body?

How many ways can old materials be repurposed and remain meaningful? The four young artisans in the Brisbane jewellery design collective Bench combine cunning skills with thoughtful approaches to materiality and the environment, and the result, showing now at Craft ACT, is fresh, colourful and completely gorgeous.

Katie Stormonth, Blended Modes and Mediums, 2018. Brooches: Aluminium, sterling silver, stainless steel, bamboo, acrylic paint. Photo: Faun Photography.

Clare Poppi asks how jewellery itself can leave marks not only on the environment but on our souls. Her Growing Jewellery series aims to create an emotional mark on the wearer as they engage with the concept of nurturing the plants held within each piece. Her Seed Bomb Necklaces empower the owner, allowing them to be the maker: the original work is wearable but also functional, able to be used as a template for other pieces, like a biscuit cutter. She includes a recipe for making an organic mix embedded with flower seeds; once the soil/clay necklace breaks, it can be left in the garden and a replacement made.

Nellie Peoples, Horizon: North -35.2736, 149.0975 (Black Mountain, Canberra, Australia), 2018. Necklace: Sterling silver, stainless steel, reclaimed Canberra timber, rubber, epoxy resin. Photo: Faun Photography.

Katie Stormonth works with light, colourful metal components in dynamic compositions. She works by cutting simple shapes in multiples, then combining them in ways that make each piece an individual. They evoke flowers, grass, insects: perfect for Spring wearing (or Spring yearning!).

Andy Lowrie also works with insects: his moths combine graphite-sketched or painted wood with silver and copper metals. They are bold, graphic works, and the brooches have a street-art quality to them that might appeal to the sartorially adventurous male in your life.

Clare Poppi, Growing Brooch I, 2017. Recycled 925 silver, 925 cilver clutch pin, soil, plant. Photo: Faun Photography.

Nellie Peoples is Canberra-born and bred, and her work references our local landscape: her Horizon series of necklaces use reclaimed Canberra timber and refer to standing on Mt Ainslie or Black Mountain and looking to the compass points. Her Bifocal series are brooches, black or silver, influenced by the valley ‘bowl’ formed between these mountains, where the city and lake sits.

Bench chose to call their group exhibition ‘Mark Making’; each work is deeply textured in action and thought. They share a studio and they work together, assisting with studio tasks and challenges, and sharing their ideas, which can result in collaborative pieces, like the necklaces made by Nellie and Katie and brooches made by Katie and Clare. Each manages to showcase their individual styles in a beautifully integrated whole.

Andie Lowrie, Mountain Spectre, 2016. Brooch: sterling silver, copper, juniper wood, paint, stainless steel. Photo: 5ft Photography.

Come and see these lively, contemporary jewellery works for yourself at Craft ACT until 25 August, or check out the collective online at www.benchstudiobrisbane.weebly.com.

the essentials

What: Mark making
Where: Craft ACT is on Level 1, North Building, 180 London Circuit, Civic.
When: Opening hours are Tuesday-Friday, 10-5 and Saturday from 12-4
Website: craftact.org.au