Today marked the opening of the RMIT Student Exhibition at the No Vacancy Gallery, as part of the MSFW Emerging Designer Series. The exhibition titled 3 ¾, puts the spotlight on the designs of 16 talented final year RMIT students, who have the opportunity to present their own experimental, theoretical and abstract expressions of fashion and design.
Rather than showcasing the final product of fashion design in the form of garments in a collection, the exhibition celebrates the entire design process, emphasising the need to challenge the ‘conventional’ representation of fashion. Students were encouraged to experiment with a range of design processes, which are documented in the spectacular installations, animations, images and sculptures on display at the No Vacancy Gallery.
It’s clear these students know their stuff; just listening them explain the purpose of their remarkable works was inspiring, let along having the opportunity to experience first-hand, the sheer merit of their work. You will be hard-pressed to find a group of students as passionate about their craft as these budding fashion designers.
Alana Hersh’s design statement titled, ‘Textilis’ explores the amalgamation of architecture and fashion from 2D to 3D, in the form of a stunning silk/organza installation.
“I’ve used a range of techniques such as weaving, crocheting, pleating, braiding and knotting to discuss the idea of decoration and surface, and to determine whether decoration is superficial or if it can be embodied,” she said.
Those who question the substance of the fashion industry and fashion design as a trade, will most certainly be proven wrong upon viewing the incredible student exhibits. It is obvious that hours upon hours of painstaking labour, planning and speculation have gone into the development of the 16 creative displays, of which are all stunning representations of fashion as an expressive medium. Perhaps the exhibition helps explain the paradox of the frivolity of the fashion industry, through the attempt to encourage individuals to engage with fashion in a new and different way.
Student Meghan Hutchens explored this very notion in her exhibit titled ‘Fashion Image’. Through a series of images and stills, Hutchens unpacks the fashion process to demonstrate the crucial stages of the design process. From conceptualization, to interdisciplinary collaboration and communication, she explores the notion of fashion as, “everything but the garment.”
The MSFW RMIT Student Exhibition gives students the unique opportunity to not only present their inimitable works and designs in a public forum, but to also test their individual design concepts for their potential to create a collection in the future. This is a free event, open to the public from Tuesday 6 September to Sunday 18 September.
Melbourne Street Fashion is a proud supporter of the Spotlight MSFW Emerging Designer Series. To celebrate our support of the Emerging Designer Series, we're giving away two double passes to two MSFW 2011 runway events. But be quick, the prizes are held on Friday and Saturday!
A couple entwined in an intimate embrace are lit by the changing shadows of the night. Their stage – a secluded laneway – is constantly interrupted by the presence of roamers residents workers and street dwellers who are forced to confront this public display of affection. For street artistVexta, creating images that evoke questioning is the potency of her craft. Beginning in 2003 her stencils and paste-ups have undoubtedly contributed to Melbourne’s international reputation as a stencil art hub.
Her images favour strong simple high impact messages and a utilitarian aesthetic borrowed from graphic conventions. Ideas of the everyday urban icons and pop culture as well as her own personal symbolism are explored in her creations. Poignant enchanting and sometimes ominous Vexta’s work attempts to comment on the social and political climates of our world.
While the streets of Melbourne and Sydney are flavoured with her images, Vexta has not limited her canvas to the antipodes. She has recently returned from painting murals in Paris and Berlin as well as collaborating in The Cans Festival in London established by the infamous street artist Banksy. Vexta’s talent and diversity has allowed her to successfully cross over from the transient street galleries to private exhibitions. Her work has also been acquired by the National Gallery of Australia – a testament to her currency and skill as an artist.
Her practice is mediated by wit and whimsy – qualities that imbue her images with relevance and enable the audience to engage with her content. For those that view street art as a barometer of a city’s cultural and social awareness Vexta’s unsanctioned handiwork truly expresses the rumblings of its people by creating a public discourse that captures the imagination of locals and tourists alike.
Melbourne Street Fashion recently chatted to the Sydney born artist who - lucky for us! - now calls the streets of Melbourne home. In an ode to her adopted city Vexta is also sharing with our readers some of her favourite examples of Melbourne street art.
Vexta tell us a bit about how you began creating graffiti.
I never went to art school [but] I’ve been very creative my whole life. My mum was pretty anti-TV so I was always given pencils and paper to entertain myself. This lead to me drawing and stamping the walls of our house - needless to say my mum wasn’t too impressed!
I started seriously making art on the streets a few years back after I’d been traveling across the Australian outback and SE Asia I arrived back in Melbourne right when street and stencil art in particular was beginning to boom. I was acutely aware of landscapes and the interplay of elements in our physical environments from traveling so the art just jumped out at me. I loved the stencil aesthetic and so I started creating my own pieces wandering the back laneways of the city late at night painting. So I guess you could say I learnt my craft at home and on the streets.
What prompted you to choose graffiti art or stencilling, rather than more traditional (and ‘legal’!) methods of screen or printmaking?
I’m not really sure if I chose it or it chose me. I just started making street art because I liked the aesthetic and people started offering me gallery shows and it snowballed from there. I think the best art should be revolutionary and drive us forward as a society or make us stop and think – illegal art can be pretty powerful in that way.
How do you prepare for the application of your work within the urban environment?
I usually prepare pieces in my studio that usually means making paste-ups and cut-outs. Most often I have already scoped out a location for the piece so I head out sometime after dusk and put it up. I often go with a friend because these days my pieces are quite large and tricky to get up alone.
You are most renowned for your stencils and paste-ups which comment on society and politics. Why do you revisit these themes?
Because I’m an intensely visual person and those are the things that make up my world. Living in a city effects how I feel my work is my reaction to what’s going on around me. The place we construct – in my case the city – is the place where we reside and exist. It can make our lives enriched and beautiful or it can make them hellish. At the moment it feels like we are at tipping point so these are the themes I’m interested in exploring the way we feel in our urban environments and the future.
Your work features monotone backgrounds or cut-outs predominately highlighted by fluoro pinks yellows and greens. Why do you choose to work with these colours?
The colors are a reference to the colors of the future. Where do we have to go from here? Only into neon. The future is dark and the only way we can see is with fluorescents. I think it’s interesting the only time you find these colors in the natural world are when plants and animals use them to signify danger yet we consider them “futuristic”.
Your most recent subjects include screeching skulls and skeletons locked in a passionate embrace. What symbolism does the macabre world of skeletons and skulls hold for you?
I’ve been painting figurative pieces for a while so it was a natural progression to start looking beneath the skin so to speak. When I was travelling across Europe last year I kept finding myself surrounded by skulls and skeletons whether in a small town in the Czech Republic or under Paris when I was illegally exploring the catacomb tunnels with a friend. I had already painted the two skeletons kissing pieces and so I just became more and more interested in the way skulls can be used to explore ideas about the past and the future life and death love and war.
Ghetto Embrace – the skeletons locking lips – has been plastered in various cities worldwide. How have the public’s reactions differed to this work depending on its location?
That piece has had a positive reaction everywhere I have painted or pasted it. It seems to have a really nice universal appeal.
You recently took part in The Cans Festival in London. What was your input and experience of this event?
The Cans Festival was great. I really didn’t know much about the event until I got there all I knew was that Banksy was planning something and wanted me to take part it was all pretty secretive until we got to London. We [painted and installed] artwork in a big tunnel. I chose this space behind an installation that Banksy made of a graffiti cubby house in a sandpit. I painted the kissing skeletons in glowing neon on a black background and then highlighted a chrome rail that was already on the wall – I hoped it looked like they were in the background of the park kissing in the dark. The show was hard work but lots of fun. I was already travelling so I created everything onsite including cutting all the stencils in about three days.
The public’s reaction to the festival was overwhelmingly positive. How does this reaction affect your work and your opinion of the viewer?
It was really great to be part of such a big art event in a great city such as London where there are so many people who support street and stencil art. 30 000 people lined up for hours to come and look at our artwork that’s a pretty nice validation of your work as an artist.
On the flipside what challenges did you face at this festival and generally as a street artist?
The biggest challenge for me was creating all my work onsite and working with materials that were different to what I use in Australia. It was also really cold and damp in the tunnel and we were putting in long hours. I guess the biggest challenge I face when making street art is getting some of the giant paste-ups on the wall – I just want to keep going bigger and bigger! Oh and not getting caught!
The Melbourne stencil graffiti scene is world renown for its diversity dynamism and accessibility. What characteristics make Melbourne appealing as a ‘canvas’ when compared to other international cities?
I think Melbourne’s mix of old and new architecture laneway culture and accessibility in terms of bars café and music culture make it ideal for street art. That and the fact that a few years ago there was a bunch of artists [who were] all really excited about street art – living and producing at the same time – that really kicked things off.
Melbourne’s hotspots for stencil graffiti include Hosier Lane and Centre Place in the city as well as Carlton’s Canada Lane. What makes a good public canvas?
I think those laneways are a bit burnt-out now. Good spots are the unknown places – hidden corners new laneways – they’re there you just have to go looking for them. I personally like painting and pasting on old walls with peeling paint interesting lighting and plants growing in cracks… Internationally there seems to be a lot of great work coming out of Brazil and Colombia.
What is your reaction to the Victoria Government’s “zero tolerance” stance on graffiti? Do you think this will encourage / discourage the public’s participation and engagement with street art?
I think it’s pretty boring and ‘unprogressive’. That said I don’t really care what bodies of authority say about street art and graffiti they aren’t the ones making it and they never will be. I didn’t start making street art to engage with the general public I started it just for fun. If street art and graffiti engages with the public [then] that’s an added bonus to making art.
Your work has also been included in numerous exhibitions. How does your creative process and finished pieces differ when working in the studio compared to the street?
When I’m working in my studio on pieces for a gallery show I spend more time creating complex pieces than [what] I make for the street. But I’m interested in applying a similar working method with my paint application – putting it on quickly and instinctively. My street work is visually different to my gallery work because it’s usually bolder and neutral in colour. I often paste-up single layer black stencils and cut-outs because I like the aesthetic of the simple amongst all the other colourful clutter in the streets whereas the opposite is true in the gallery my work there is very colourful and filled with more texture and patterns.
Your first exhibition as curator – entitled The Outsider Project – was staged at the Kristian Pithie Gallery in June. How did you become involved in this venture and what was the experience like?
Kristian basically offered me his gallery for a month to curate whatever sort of show I wanted. I pitched the idea of The Outsiders to him and we went from there – it’s a bit hard to say “no” when someone offers you such a beautiful gallery and lets you hang whatever work you think is great. It was cool to be able to present a bunch of artists who all work across different mediums and deal with different subject matter but actually have a lot in common namely by being outsiders (self taught or working outside traditional art means) and then place this work in context.
Street art and its mainstream acceptance has reached dizzying heights of success in recent times with several artists – including Banksy Faile Adam Neates and Dface – receiving in excess of $100 000 for their work. The increase in street art’s “worth” has led to changes within the scene itself. What is your opinion of this – do you think street art has lost it’s “edge” in these circumstances?
I think it’s a really complicated topic and we’d probably need to have another conversation about it! Street art as a movement or a genre is only as strong as the sum of its parts and the artists who are making public artworks. Hopefully people will keep making art for the love [of] it and putting it out there illegally for the world to enjoy no matter what they are paid for their other pieces.
If you could spray with someone else’s can for a day whose would it be?
I’d take Conor Harrington. His work is truly amazing.
VEXTA'S PICKS
Vexta chose four artworks found on her daily travel route from her home to her studio. “These are pieces I see most days" she adds. "They are street art that makes my day a little brighter for its existence. I have met all of these artists – some I have worked with some are friends of mine. For those reasons as well as the beauty of the pieces they are special to me. They are more than just images – they are reflections of these people I know.”
Artist: Alone1 (Iran). Location: Fitzroy.
Artists: Drewfunk (Melbourne) and George (Brisbane). Location: Laneway in Melbourne.
Artist: Emol (Brazil). Location: Fitzroy.
Artist: Anthony Lister (New York). Location: Laneway in Melbourne.
