Melbourne Design Fair returns for a four-day event this month to spotlight contemporary and 20th-century collectible design by leading Australian and international designers. Running from May 18 until May 21 at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, the Fair will feature everything from cutting-edge furniture design to unique objects and jewellery.
In 2023, the Fair will also debut a NGV-curated section titled Discovery, dedicated to the promotion and sale of work by emerging designers and makers. Another NGV-curated highlight is Focus, which brings attention to the work of five accomplished Australian female designers and makers.
With more than 150 designers to see, curator Simone LeAmon has cut through the noise and cherry-picked her highlights of the 2023 Melbourne Design Fair.
Undiscovered Talent
Studio Tops combines technical knowledge of glass, steel and leatherwork to create sculptural and architectural furniture and lighting. Founded by Melbourne artist and maker Simone Tops in 2014, the studio creates works designed to be companions for life. Tops' lights are exquisite with a punk-like sensibility.
Numbulwar Numburindi Arts was established in 2019. The community is located at the mouth of the Rose River on the coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria in east Arnhem Land and belongs to the Nunggayinbala clan. Numbulwar Numburindi Artists combine naturally dyed and locally harvested pandanus with bright and bold ghost nets, abandoned fishing line retrieved from Numbulwar’s shoreline. Wilfred, Janette Murrungun and Rose Wilfred are acclaimed weavers whose new large-scale weavings will be presented by Agency, Melbourne.
Highlights from the Discovery exhibition
Julian Leigh May is an experimental designer whose practice embraces furniture, lighting and objects. They seek to redefine everyday items through new narratives, materials and forms. May’s Introspection IV reconfigures our notions of the domestic mirror. Made from aluminium, it features a hand-hammered frame with sand-cast thorns and a hand-polished reflective mirror. The work depicts May’s own personal growth and evolution. For the designer, it is both a self-portrait and a representation of the queer community facing unclear visions of their future. The distorted mirror invites viewers to see the world through their perspective.
Alfred Lowe's interest in fine arts was inspired by his upbringing in Alice Springs. He recalls watching Anmatyerre artist, Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, paint for hours while he spent significant time at the Araluen Arts and Cultural Precinct as a child and teenager. Lowe’s ceramics explore themes of Country using form and texture informed by his intimate knowledge of the central desert landscape. His work also reflects his interest in politics and racial justice, examining how culture and identity are navigated in modern times.
Nicole Lawrence is a designer and fabricator specialising in metal furniture and lighting. Balancing structural purpose with artistic freedom, Lawrence draws on her technical expertise and the help of a small studio team to produce each piece in her Preston studio. Lawrence’s latest collection Warp-Weft, features a range of limited edition designs in anodised aluminium that pay homage to the timeless practice of weaving, skillfully transposing textile techniques into the medium of metal. The towering standing lamp as part of this series is a superb example of her abilities as a young designer-maker.
Highlights from the Focus exhibition
Emma Jackson is an architect that merges her abiding interest in earth science and textiles to create large-scale works that communicate the complex geometries of deep time. Her Time Travellers series of hand-knotted rugs use vivid colours and striking elements to reveal the geological behaviour of four billion years of continental migration in Oceania, effectively challenging the traditional perception of Australia as a static landmass.
Jessica Murtagh specialises in creating blown glass vessels. She draws inspiration from ancient Athenian ceramic amphoras, which often depicted scenes of daily life. Murtagh’s vessels consist of two colours, often a blue interior and a white powdered glass exterior. Adapting an ancient glass technique called cameo glass, Murtagh hand carves and engraves complex illustrations onto the exterior of the vessels depicting 360-degree scenes relating to the social and economic fall-out of Covid-19 in Australia, online dating, domestic and everyday contemporary life.
Nicolette Johnson is a ceramicist employing wheel-throwing, coiling and sculpting techniques to produce vessels imbued with esoteric and surrealist motifs. A deep understanding of the myriad traditions, techniques and symbols of vessel-making informs Johnson’s work. For Focus, Johnson has made a pair of epic vessels glazed in silver, her most ambitious works to date they have an other-worldly appeal.
The must-see booths
ALM is a design agency and gallery working with an enviable role call of international and Australian designers and partners. ALM’s artistic offering of contemporary furniture, lighting, textiles and homewares breaks with established design styles and conventions, resulting in functional works that are striking, unexpected and memorable.
Funaki Gallery has been recognised as a driving force in the promotion of contemporary jewellery in Australia for more than 25 years since it was founded by renowned jeweller, sculptor and advocate for the field, Mari Funaki. For the 2023 Melbourne Design Fair, Funaki will present works by some of the most highly regarded contemporary jewellers in the world, including David Clarke, Jiro Kamata, Karl Fritsch, Lisa Walker, Lore Langendries, Manon van Kouswijk and Veronika Fabian.
Kurunpa Kunpu / Strong Spirit is a cross-cultural design collaboration between First Nation artists Tanya Singer and Errol Evans and Sydney-based designer Trent Jansen, with skillful craftsmanship and design development by Chris Nicholson and Mast Furniture. The exhibition includes a cabinet, sideboard and chairs. Over three years, Tanya, Errol and Trent have spent time in each other’s communities, learning from unique relationships with Country, family and community and engaging with each other’s cultural practices and traditions.