Vicki Mason: Vignettes from a Suburban Front Yard

Overview

Somewhere between Margaret Preston and that giant plastic island, Australia popped its domestic relationship with nature on the backburner. Chrysanthemum versus bottlebrush? Sorry, we cried, but we have bigger fish to fry (sorry for the fish jokes,Torsten Knorr). That is, unless you have been hanging our around Flinders Lane or Melbourne-based artist Vicki Mason, in which case you will know that our hedgerows are as topical as ever.

The New-Zealand born jeweller has taken over Craft's Gallery One with pieces inspired by the front gardens of South-West Melbourne. Vignettes from a Suburban Front Yard is a collection that returns to ideas of private versus public, recurring fashions and suburban house pride with fresh eyes. In fact you might want to ignore what I said earlier about bigger fish, because Mason is taking on a whale with Vignettes — the artist would like to open up a dialogue about the consequences of aspiring to a rural aesthetic within the realities of urban sprawl, and the associated challenges for Australia... And, there goes Wordsworth rolling around in his grave again.