Libby Haines + Jordan Fleming

Beyond the Threshold

: Revelations of Domestic Existence

13 – 24 September 2023

Opening Night:
Wednesday 13th September, 6 – 8pm

In-conversation with Libby Haines and Jordan Fleming:
Saturday 16th September, 4 – 5pm

Catalogue & Price List
View PDF Catalogue

Saint Cloche is proud to present a Pas De Deux of a wonderful curatorial pairing of Libby Haines and Jordan Fleming with Beyond the Threshold: Revelations of Domestic Existence. Together, they beckon you to engage in a closer inspection of interior scenes and objects poised between the familiar and the uncanny.

The combined impact of Libby’s painterly narratives and Jordan’s object designs delve into the liminal space between the familiar and the enigmatic, sparking both recognition and estrangement in equal measure. Beyond the Threshold: Revelations of Domestic Existence serves as a testament to the artists’ ability to transmute the ordinary into the extraordinary and to inspire contemplation about the multifaceted nature of our everyday surroundings.

Emerging from the amalgamation of this duo’s bright and creative spirits is an open-hearted offering with colour, substance, movement, texture, and light (literally) along with an enduring abundance of warmth.

About Libby Haines

Still life artist Libby Haines captures the domestic through her textural paintings; rich with colour and life, they allow for a closer look at everyday life, evoking colour as feeling.

The paintings appreciate the quiet moments. As a result, they are anchored in the now. The artist works from photos, merging and omitting elements within the frame for her composition – depicting the messy part of life at unusual angles, reigning the chaos in with colour blocking.

Food and domestic scenes feature heavily, echoing her passion for cooking – another form of self-expression, escapism, and even love language. Alongside joy and feelings of nostalgia, a playful sense comes through the work. The uncanny and unremarkable – her shower, unmade bed, or a kitchen in motion – become alive and not quite reality in textural brushstrokes and vibrant colours.

Painting with water-mixable oil paints, alla prima (wet on wet), the vibrancy of oil paints dry exactly as they look wet. Applied thick and liberally, this is the most pleasurable aspect and where the real magic happens – the colours and textures vivid and powerful, bringing the initial sketches to life.

The process oscillates between smaller and larger works; the smaller paintings are relaxed and impulsive, completed in a few hours. An integral part of the practice, Haines commits to two a week to experiment and explore colour combinations. Complementary to the small works, the large paintings feed off this  experimentation, yet with more in-depth planning and sketching.

Originally from Sale, Gippsland, Haines swapped the country for Melbourne in her early twenties. She graduated from Monash University with a Bachelor in Visual and Media Arts in 2007, first following a path of fashion, then jewellery design. This previous experience helped develop a strong sense of colour and pattern, which feeds organically into her paintings.

Libby has exhibited in groups shows with Modern Times (2021, 2022) Honey bones (2022) and has exhibited 3 sold-out solo shows, Perry’s refreshment Club x Black hearts Wines (2022) Saint cloche (2022) Brunswick Street Gallery (2021)

In 2023 she hosted a series of art classes in the Pierre Bonnard designed by India Mahdavi exhibition; at the National Gallery of Victoria.

“My work attempts to subvert the banality of domestic life in painterly form. With an intimate perspective, I unveil decadent and peculiar scenes that envelope viewers in a palpable tension of what lies beyond the frame. The disarray of strewn clothes, the wreckage of shattered vases, and the incongruity of a cake half-eaten by hand all exude an intensity that hints at lurking danger and simmering bitterness. These scenes are teeming with life yet suspended in a momentary pause, compelling contemplation through their unsettling imagery. Stripping away personal identities, I leave only ghostly figures and enigmatic gloved hands, inviting the spectator into a world where the everyday is elevated through eerie anonymity.”

– Libby Haines

About Jordan Fleming

Jordan grew up in country Victoria and now lives and works in Melbourne. She creates idiosyncratic, experimental and sculptural furniture and lighting objects. With a background in cabinet making and interior design, she established her own furniture design practice in 2018, characterised by a playful, wonky, and lively aesthetic that employs tactile materials including plaster, pigment, timber and metal.

Fascinated about how certain materials can be manipulated and use to add anthropomorphic and emotional reference points to an object, elevating the piece beyond its programmatic function. After all, we collect and live with these objects around us, they are our creativity, personified. She feels they should be part of the family. Just possibly there may be a reflection of us hidden in the layers of a single created form.

She loves to push the fine balance of an experimental approach with also a deep know-ing. Confidentially exploring the imperfections, she creates in rebellious, wonky and almost otherworldly forms. As people aren’t perfect, she doesn’t think objects or furniture need to be either. Embracing any mistake into a piece makes her smile, adding a unique record of the human touch.

Jordan’s work has been exhibited at Melbourne NOW (2023), Melbourne Design Week (2023, 2022, 2021, 2020), Craft Victoria (2021), At The Above (2021),The Australian Design Centre’s Workshopped19 exhibition (2019) and internationally at Milan Design Week (2023- Movimento) and the Lake Como Design Festival, Italy (2022).  Fleming was selected for the Australian Design Reviews, 30 under 30  (2023) in product design and made the Vogue Living Top 50 list in 2022.  She was shortlisted for the Object – Furniture and Design prize at the IDEA Awards (2020) and won the UTS Sydney Award for Sustainable Design in 2019 as well as the design prize in Frankie magazine’s Good Stuff Awards (2018). Her work was also selected as a ‘design top pick’ by the Australian Financial Review in 2021.

Fleming holds a Bachelor of Design (Object and Spatial) from the University of New South Wales and a Diploma of Interior Design from the Sydney Design School.

“In contrast to Libby, I approach the uncanny from a different angle, instilling vacant spaces with objects that embody a sense of corporeality and intimacy. The standing height of lively coloured bowls, lamps, and wall lights reminiscent of drapery, casts a phantasmal and faded presence within the domestic setting. These objects, far from intruding, evoke a subdued imprint of self, suggesting an intertwining of human essence with the inanimate. My fascination lies in the transformation of furniture beyond mere function, to evoke the sense of coexistence with these creatures rather than being static entities. Each piece carries a distinct human touch, crafted by hand using a sculpting plaster mix and mixing raw pigments into the layers.”

– Jordan Fleming