Rustic Reverie
Part of Stories from the SAM Collection
From 25 March 2025
Shepparton Art Musuem
Part of Stories from the SAM Collection
From 25 March 2025
Shepparton Art Musuem
Featuring artists:
Artists: George Baldessin, Kirsten Coelho, Ivan Durrant, Nobuo Satō, Ethel Spowers, and Paul Wood.
In our homes, we are surrounded by material culture. Belongings accumulate, become commonplace, or are only seen through the lens of utility. However, if they are reframed through deliberate observation, mundane objects can regain their lustre to reveal serendipitous still-life arrangements.
Kettles, light fixtures, and ceramics dishes found in homes today are often mass-produced rather than handmade. Yet even mass-market goods can develop unique character and an unspoken appeal through use and wear. The harsh conditions of rural Australia can accelerate processes like rusting and sun bleaching—aging materials rapidly and hastening the development of a beautiful patina on objects that imbues them with a sense of history.
In these artworks the artists have highlighted domestic items and spaces, capturing the beauty in the everyday that often goes overlooked. By observing the pleasing roundness of the three eggs in Nobuo Satō’s 1964 print Eggs and Flowers, or the light falling across the tack shed wall in Ivan Durant’s Bridle, 1988, the viewer realises that objects and spaces can become remarkable when they are beheld, not acknowledged; that we are surrounded by beauty in our everyday lives.
In our homes, we are surrounded by material culture. Belongings accumulate, become commonplace, or are only seen through the lens of utility. However, if they are reframed through deliberate observation, mundane objects can regain their lustre to reveal serendipitous still-life arrangements.
Kettles, light fixtures, and ceramics dishes found in homes today are often mass-produced rather than handmade. Yet even mass-market goods can develop unique character and an unspoken appeal through use and wear. The harsh conditions of rural Australia can accelerate processes like rusting and sun bleaching—aging materials rapidly and hastening the development of a beautiful patina on objects that imbues them with a sense of history.
In these artworks the artists have highlighted domestic items and spaces, capturing the beauty in the everyday that often goes overlooked. By observing the pleasing roundness of the three eggs in Nobuo Satō’s 1964 print Eggs and Flowers, or the light falling across the tack shed wall in Ivan Durant’s Bridle, 1988, the viewer realises that objects and spaces can become remarkable when they are beheld, not acknowledged; that we are surrounded by beauty in our everyday lives.
Images: Rustic Reverie, installation view, Shepparton Art Museum 2025. Photo:Leon Schoots