Emma Le Strange: Optical Awakening

Overview

Emma Le Strange isn't just an artist — she's an aspiring creative polymath. Her work aims to combine styles and forms, the past and the future, and the old and the new. Think costuming, photography, realist drawing, etching, music and cabaret, all in one presentation. Think a Victorian-inspired corset and faux peacock tail crocheted from fibre optic cable.

Indeed, that's exactly what Optical Awakening — her latest exhibition — offers. Le Strange forces the age-old endeavours of drawing and crochet into contemporary times, and blends performance and art in the culmination of a yearlong project.

The opening night event on December 4 perhaps illustrates this combination best, featuring performances from Le Strange's muse CeCe Shabam, cabaret aficionado Melissa Cloake, and Le Strange herself making her stage debut as Delta de Milo. If you can't make it along then, don't despair — the magical mix of cabaret illumination and artistic manifestation will also brighten up Jugglers Art Space for a two-week season.