Colourful Experiments in Art
Tonje Andersen
‟Elyssa slept on a mattress while installing these sculptures,” Emilya Colliver, owner of Art Pharmacy, tells me as we make our way up the stairs to the mezzanine where Elyssa Sykes-Smith and her artwork hold court. ‟She’s intense!”
It is the opening night of the Lab, a pop-up gallery arranged by Art Pharmacy in connection with Sydney Fringe Festival and the place is crowded. Mulga the Artist is creating an eye-catching painting on the window. The walls are covered in prints and paintings and collages. It is crowded but somehow it works. It should be confusing and overwhelming but somehow, to me, it is lively instead. Not all of the art is to my own taste but I enjoy walking around looking at everything. There are prints that are X-rays of toys (Brendan Fitzpatrick), amusing dogs (Bea Bellingham), and a giant baby’s head sculpture on the wall (Will Coles). I can’t always tell whether art is intended to be funny or whether it is my warped sense of humour kicking in. Mostly, I think it is intended. I tilt my head to the side like a dog and stare at everything, making mental notes for when I win the lottery and/or get a bigger flat.
People are chatting and waiting patiently outside to be allowed in to see the artworks and maybe even buy some of them. That is what I am doing. I might have been carried away by the general mood of excitement, the buzz of voices, the free alcohol, and the rapidly appearing red dots beneath artworks. Buy now, now, now! Or the opportunity is lost forever!
Easily influenced as I am, I am buying my very first work of Australian art. The artist specialises in slightly larger than human-sized sculptures. For this event, she has some smaller works hanging on the walls. Some of them feature hands drawn in biro on pieces of wood which are puzzled together until they fit Elyssa’s vision. To me, there is something very physical about the work. The combination of material, reclaimed timber and the fingers drawn on it, give the effect of something alive, fleeting yet eternal. Elyssa tells me later that the hands are her own; the self portrait of a sculptor?
Emilya makes the process of becoming an art owner easy. She is bright, chatty and personable and within a moment, it is done. I am simultaneously elated and terrified. Being an art owner seems like a lot of responsibility somehow. More wine, I decide. More wine will definitely help. Wine does its thing and I end up spending ten minutes talking very seriously about tantric sex with a sex therapist. I am leaning against a table full of charming terrariums, trying desperately not to step through the floor and tilt head first into the art on the wall. Destroying artwork would definitely be a faux pas even in this open minded place.
By the time I leave, I am feeling happy about all the free alcohol but my head is fuzzy and I wonder if this is how all gallery openings go?
If so, I will have to start leaving my credit card at home. I am a poor student, after all.
Keep an eye on the website for the next pop-up gallery: www.artpharmacy.com.au
Opening of 'The Lab', Art Pharmacy pop up, Darlinghurst, September 2014, Photo: Xavier Burrows
