Associate
Group Exhibition
12–29 September
Associate is a group exhibition presented by the Jewellery and Metal Associates at JamFactory. The participants explore the associations or connections they make within their practice, with each other, or with other groups, ideas, or communities. This exhibition represents a diverse range of contemporary jewellery and metal objects developed in their shared space.
Featured Artists: Courtney Hogan, Menna McAlpin, Aimee Bradley, Christine Collins, Jenny Johnstone
Menna McAlpin
Menna’s letterbox series is about how human connection can be facilitated through mundane objects and how we as humans in turn build associations of connection to the mundane objects themselves. Letters and letterboxes are rapidly losing relevance in the modern world but still remain one of the best options for facilitating truly personal and private correspondence. Menna invites the viewers to pen their own letters with the material provided, seal them with a stamp and post them into ‘Functional Letterbox’. Menna will then post the letters themselves at the conclusion of the exhibition.
Courtney Hogan
Courtney Hogan’s collection of work for Associate is about bringing together materials in a playful and experimental way to create jewellery with colour. This collection includes a copper wall piece, which has been enamelled with floral illustrations.
Aimee Bradley
Aimee has a deep interest in human behavior. Her curiosity lies in understanding the emotions that drive our actions and decisions. This fascination leads her to break down the multitude of emotions humans experience and explore how they interplay, shaping our complex nature.
Christine Collins
Christine Collins explores the industrial transformation of materials and the association between form and perceived value. The works in this exhibition plot a pathway of materials, from rock to resource, transformed by mining in the Broken Hill area. This includes geological formation, land, rock, mineral, ore, by-product, product and waste.
Jenny Johnstone
Jenny Johnstone's works incorporate words to communicate Jenny's association with the landscape she is interested in—the remote parts of New South Wales she has sought out and often spent time alone in over the years. These are words written both previously and recently, or gathered by other methods, such as the technique of blackout poetry, that relate to Jenny's feelings of being in the remote landscape, its beauty, and its sublime aloneness.
The brooch series Outbuildings treats the recurring shape as a colour swatch—a palette from memory, reminiscent of buildings in time-worn towns, and part of Jenny’s ongoing experimentation with paint and its application to metal.
Please join us for a drink to celebrate the opening of Associate on Friday 13 September (6–9PM)
exhibition collection
Associate is presented as part of Radiant Pavilion 2024, a Naarm/Melbourne Contemporary Jewellery and Object Biennial.