Beautiful Tensions: Gray Street Workshop
celebrates forty years

In celebration of Gray Street Workshop’s 40th anniversary, JamFactory presents Beautiful Tensions, a major touring exhibition honouring the momentous legacy and talent of the workshop by showcasing new work by the four current partners: Jess Dare, Lisa Furno, Sue Lorraine and Catherine Truman.

 Established in 1985, Gray Street Workshop is one of Australia’s longest running collectively run studios for artists working in the field of contemporary jewellery and object making. The uncompromising commitment of this group of artists to their work and to studio-based practice has enabled Gray Street Workshop to evolve into one of Australia’s most exciting and respected workshops.

 Beautiful Tensions brings together new work by the four current partners and is the culmination of two years of work and research. Witty, playful and poignant in equal measure, each body of work is distinctive, yet share certain themes and formal concerns. This timely exhibition articulates the group’s shared commitment to the value of making and the power of objects to transmit meaning. The way their shared themes are articulated so differently in the exhibition is a cogent expression of how the group works, in their own words, ‘separately together’.

The exhibition will be launched at JamFactory Adelaide before touring to 12 venues nationally across SA, VIC, TAS, NSW and QLD. It is accompanied by a 152-page hard-cover monograph, co-published by JamFactory and Wakefield Press, and written by author and Gray Street Workshop co-founder Anne Brennan.

Beautiful Tensions: Gray Street Workshop celebrates forty years is a JamFactory touring exhibition supported by the Visions of Australia touring program, an Australian Government program aiming to improve access to cultural material for all Australians.

Exhibitors: Jess Dare, Lisa Furno, Sue Lorraine, Catherine Truman

Jess Dare, Impermanence, 2024, installation (detail), Photographer: Grant Hancock. 

Melting Point

For thousands of years, the process of metal casting has been widely utilised worldwide in the creation of a wide range of objects including tools, weapons, jewellery, sculpture and mechanical components. An ancient technique dating back to the Bronze Age (c.3300-1200 BCE), metal casting was the catalyst for some of humanity’s earliest advancements in manufacturing, engineering and the decorative arts. An inexpensive way to create multiples of complex objects, metal casting typically involves transferring molten metal from a crucible into a mould to create a positive metal cast object, with the most common techniques including  lost-wax casting, plaster mould casting, die casting and sand casting.

Fusing ancient techniques with modern design aesthetics, Melting Point pays homage to the tradition of metal casting by presenting the work of five contemporary designers who transform the raw material of metal into refined craft and design objects. Using a variety of different traditional metal casting methods, Andrew Carvolth, Nathan Martin, Julian Leigh May, Annie Paxton and Chrystal Rimmer reinterpret these techniques through a distinctly modern set of design principles and aesthetics. Through their mastery of metal casting, these contemporary artists both preserve and challenge traditional craft practices, pushing the materials and processes to their limits in the creation of new objects, shapes and forms.

Exhibitors: Andrew Carvolth, Nathan Martin, Julian Leigh May, Annie Paxton, Chrystal Rimmer

Saturday Yard Work, MELANCHOLY VESSEL 10, 2025, Aluminium, 310 x 200 x 200

Nurtured

Nurtured observes works created by seven artists mentored as studio tenants by Gray Street Workshop founders. Now established jewellers and facilitators in their own right, they create unique works continuing an exploration of possibilities in medium and form, as well as inspiring and nurturing a new generation of creative talent.

Exhibitors: Claire Brooks, Kath Inglis, Anja Jagsch, Hello Potter Girls, Naomi Schwartz, Lauren Simeoni, Leonie Westbrook

Claire Brooks, Interlace Solitaire Stacker Ring D, 2025, 9ct white gold, 1.43ct lilac sapphire, Size P, Photo: Connor Patterson