Saint Cloche @ Sydney Contemporary 2023
Saint Cloche presents
Panel Discussion
@ Moxy Sydney Airport
‘Place Making Through Art’
A VIP offsite live event as part of Sydney Contemporary 2023
9 September 2023 . 4:30 – 5:30 pm (free event)
Bar Moxy – Moxy Sydney Airport Hotel, 56 Baxter Road, Mascot
Saint Cloche Gallery Paddington will be presenting a special offsite panel discussion on the topic: ‘Place Making Through Art’ during Happy Hour at Marriott International’s dazzling new Moxy Sydney Airport – Bar Moxy, 4.30 – 5.30pm Saturday 9th September.
All the artists on our panel have works on display either within the Art House breakout space or within the rooms at the Moxy Airport Hotel.
Throughout the ages artists have ‘captured culture’ through their work and are often the best at telling the stories of our collective history and where humanity’s zeitgeist was, at any moment in history. Creative placemaking with art animates public and private spaces, revitalising structures, and streetscapes, animates businesses and is an essential part of building a more cohesive community and is just as integral as other pillars of development such as infrastructure, land use, education, etc. Our panellists will discuss how leveraging the arts, and engaging sensory design make spaces more liveable and enhances our quality of life.
Leveraging the arts, and engaging sensory design make spaces more liveable and enhances our quality of life.
Panellists:
Evi O, Saxon Quinn, Bec Smith, Will Cooke, Elliott Routledge
Moderator:
Billie Routledge
Evi O
Evi O. (b. 1986) is an award-winning multidisciplinary designer and self-taught artist based in Sydney, Australia. With a curious eye and mind, Evi is constantly exploring and observing her surroundings. Her art practice is fueled by a genuine drive to examine and express human curiosity which she translates into vivid pictorial abstractions with sentiment and humour. Through her simultaneous practice of art and design, Evi’s creative process weaves together an array of experiments in mediums, technology, graphic and spatial design.
Evi’s works can be seen in each of the Moxy Hotel’s rooms as luminary examples of Moxy’s Mission for Design; Seriously Considered. Playfully Executed.
Evi has exhibited in Sydney and Melbourne and is represented by Saint Cloche, she debuted at Sydney Contemporary 2019 with ‘Fantasia’ a solo presentation by Evi O at Saint Cloche’s booth. In 2022, Evi participated in a presentation of four artists by Saint Cloche at Sydney Contemporary, took part in Whale Tail Project, Chairity by Cult, Mirage launched by Uprise Art New York and was featured in the book title, Artists at Home, published by Thames & Hudson.Most recently her work has adorned Sydney Light Rail as an initiative between 4A gallery and City of Sydney. Evi’s work has been acquired by City of Sydney Civic Collections and Westin Miyako in Kyoto, Japan.
Saxon Quinn
Saxon JJ Quinn (b.1986, Allendale, VIC) is a self-taught mixed media artist intrigued by the rough, the worn and the resilient. Born in country Victoria, Saxon spent his childhood surrounded by creativity. His artist mother tied a basket to the ceiling of her studio where, as a baby, he would swing while she worked. As he grew older, he began sketching, painting, and experimenting with clay, at times accidentally defacing her works in the process.
After studying Communication Design and building his career in Melbourne, Quinn moved to New York City, immersing himself in the city and its urban patina. The beauty he found in the aged and weathered elements were cemented as the foundation of his creative work, and painting became the outlet.
Now, from his home in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales, Quinn primarily uses canvas, graphite, and paint, layering hues, symbols, and textures to create works that sway from the intentional to the unrestrained, the minimalist to the uninhibited. Each piece bears meaningful motifs alongside elements of mischievous humour, with each mark representing an aspect of his life. These marks are arranged precisely to induce a sensory effect, where a calming constellation can be found in a world of perceived chaos – it is a means of communication, of sending messages, of constructing recognisable symbols, providing a rich language for developing relationships with materials, nature, people and place.
Saxon continues his exploration of sensory, mixed-medium abstract paintings and sculpture with a solo exhibition at the Saint Cloche booth at Sydney Contemporary 2023.
Bec Smith
Bec Smith is a Naarm / Melbourne-based artist who has practiced art and design in both Australia and overseas for over 25 years. In pursuit of her creative practice Bec studied at The Art Academy in London, the Art Room in Melbourne, RMIT and Swinburne National School of Design where she holds a bachelor’s degree in graphic design.
She has always stayed particularly interested in abstract, non- objective, and colourfield paintings – a natural extension of a designer’s grounding in the early visual language of the Bauhaus, Modernists, Op, and Abstract Expressionists movements as well a deep interest in social and psychoanalytic practices, which underpin her first career as an Experience Designer. Her works are realisations of actual and idealised situations around structural and systemic dynamics translated into static moments – liminal spaces depicting personal stories of fiction and non-fiction, ruminating on duality and multiple truths.
Bec has participated in the Belle Art Prize, Melbourne Design Festival, Sydney Contemporary, and her work is held in private collections. Bec is represented by Saint Cloche Gallery.
Will Cooke
Will Cooke is a Sydney-based artist who creates illusion-based paintings that revel in the histories of industrial design, meditation, architecture, and personal development. Will’s minimal pattern-based and often geometric artworks reflect a beautiful observation of colour, shape and tone and has seen him participate in numerous exhibitions both nationally and internationally.
Most recently, Will was commissioned by the City of Sydney to canvas the ‘Top of the Town’ building Darlinghurst, in a giant mural as part of their ‘Art and About’ program….an example of civic placemaking in and of itself, as murals beautify urban precincts, delivering thriving, creative, and strong community/cultural identity.
Elliott Routledge
Elliott Routledge, born in Tokyo, Japan, is a contemporary abstract artist living and working out of Sydney. He is known for his public art installations around Australia and throughout parts of the world. His work exists in a balance between expressive mark making, abstract form and small to large scale sculpture.
Elliott presents paintings and sculptural pieces which are influenced by his exterior outdoor public practice, which go from small intimate works to large scale canvas paintings that demand attention and react to the architecture that surrounds. It’s within this process of painting facades where the correlation to people and their own facades becomes apparent. Routledge takes visual data from experience, feeling, or physical objects and rearranges them into abstracted portraits of what could make up a person.
Elliott’s landmark mural in Pitt Street, Sydney was a feature of the Art & About Festival in Sydney and the SODO Track international mural festival in Seattle, USA. As part of his 2014 residency in Vienna, his work was shown in the Museums Quartier, and is held in numerous private collections. Elliot is represented by Olsen Gallery.
Billie Routledge (Moderator)
Billie and her husband Elliott run Funstudio – an arts focused creative studio and production house based in Sydney that specialises in producing large scale public art projects, collaborations, and contemporary design.
Billie is an art director and project manager, and with the studio’s combined skills and community network, they can bring any project to life, from concept development, design, and planning, through to project management and installation.
Funstudio has worked with both local and international artists on a variety of projects, ranging in scale for local councils, government agencies and large corporations. Some of our clients are City of Sydney, Sydney Trains, Transport for NSW, UTS, WeWork, The Galeries (Vicinity), Mirvac, Bailey Nelson, Nike and many more.
‘Place Making Through Art’
Panel Discussion
9 September 2023 . 4:30 – 5:30 pm (free event)
Bar Moxy – Moxy Sydney Airport Hotel, 56 Baxter Road, Mascot