Belle December 2023 - January 2024

belle EDITORIAL Editor-in-chief Tanya Buchanan Creative director Shayne Burton Managing editor Matilda Ringrose Senior copy editor Janice Hogg Chief copy editor, Homes Peter Griffiths Art director, Homes Marissa Foye Junior designer, Homes Saffron Sylvester Art production Matus Kundrat Stylist, Homes Sophie Wilson Editorial coordinator, Homes Anna Campbell Contributing editors Steve Cordony (Style director-at-large), Karen McCartney (Architecture), David Meagher (Luxe Files) Judy Pascoe (Library), Carli Philips (Melbourne), Harry Roberts (Art), Jean Wright (Design) EDITORIAL OFFICE GPO Box 4088, Sydney, NSW 1028 Tel (02) 9282 8456, email: belle@aremedia.com.au CONTRIBUTORS Sharyn Cairns, Emil Cohen, Georgina Egan, Tom Ferguson, Maree Homer, Stephanie Hope, Alana Landsberry, Esteban La Tessa, Rhiannon Lidbury, Tim O’Connor, Chloë Paul, Chris Pearson, Prue Ruscoe, Anson Smart, Kristina Soljo ADVERTISING Commercial manager, Homes Rhyl Heavener Brand executive Claire Ellis,…

One of the great privileges of my job is getting the opportunity to meet my entrepreneurial and design heroes. I am a big fan of biographies and documentaries and voraciously devour these to delve into the influences that make leaders in their fields excel. It is even more exciting when you get to interview and spend a good chunk of time with someone you have long admired. Recently, I was lucky to have a lunch discussion at Brisbane’s stylish The Calile with trailblazing and award-winning landscape designer Paul Bangay AO as part of the launch of Paul’s new book Paul Bangay: A Life in Garden Design. When I picked up the eye-catching new volume with its cover, which is a contemporary take on the traditional parterre, I expected it to…

IT’S MY BELIEF that we are all shaped by life’s early experiences and so I always like to understand how architects came to choose the profession – or how it chose them. Architect Sam Crawford is clear that a decision by his parents to take him and his six siblings for a year out in Europe was so formative to his cultural outlook that he characterises it as ‘life changing’. “It was the late 70s and southern Europe was cheap. We stayed in an old monastery in Tuscany, halfway between Florence and Siena, and with the luxury of time also rented houses within reach of major cities, spending days in museums and art galleries,” he says. Only seven years old, and the youngest of the tribe, he still recalls the…

DUAL EXPRESSIONS At Shoreditch Design District, Soma: Design Abstraction from within the Cell (above) by scientist and artist Abid Javed showed how his research subject – molecular biology – creates abstract forms termed ‘molecular objects,’ through sculpted clay bodies. abidjaved.com. The Sons of Beasley – Carl Clerkin and Alex Hellum – used the ground floor of retailer SCP as a workshop, hand-making chairs (left) with offcuts donated by local cabinet maker Plykea. scp.co.uk PATRICIA URQUOLIA AND PATRIZIA MOROSO SPOKE WITH DEZEEN EDITORIAL DIRECTOR MAX FRASER AT MOROSO’S LONDON SHOWROOM ON THE SUBJECT OF THE FEMALE DYNAMIC, CREATIVITY AND INTERSECTION OF ART AND DESIGN. MOROSO’S MOST RECENT CREATIONS WERE ON SHOW INCLUDING THE ‘LOVESEAT’ – AN EVOLUTION OF A PREVIOUS DESIGN THROUGH THE LENS OF SUSTAINABILITY. MOROSO.IT As part of Brompton…

VICTORIA DIGGING DEEPER ‘Brent Harris: Surrender & Catch’ presents more than 100 paintings, drawings, studies and prints from across the artist’s four-decade career, mapping his work (right) as a process of psychological excavation. Mining unconscious images with the surrealist technique of automatic drawing, the artist’s ambiguous forms move freely from abstract to figurative, comical to grotesque, becoming embedded with reflections on mortality, eroticism, trauma and childhood – undercurrents belied by their flat, graphic style. December 2–March 11. twma.com.au NEW SOUTH WALES BEST IN SHOW Puppy love turns thoughtprovoking in ‘New Dog Old Tricks’, with fresh views on the bond between humans and our canine companions. Unleashing questions on the possibility of other emotional worlds, the group show features works from 10 Australian artists including Aleks Danko, (left). Until February 4.…

THE THI RD EDITION of the National Emerging Art Prize was celebrated in November with a glittering reception at Michael Reid Art Bar, where four unrepresented, up-and-coming art stars were named recipients of the program’s major prizes. Sponsored by Morgans Financial and supported by Belle, NEAP’s top honour for 2023 went to Melbourne artist Joe Whyte for his moody and evocative oil painting, Through the Clouds. Having honed his skills with training in France after studies at Monash University, Joe’s prizewinning work melds an enduring affinity for the architecture and streetscapes of inner Melbourne with an exploration of the sense of alienation these urban environments can engender. “My work explores the juxtaposition between the close proximity in which we live and the sense of isolation which so often comes along…