SIM LÜTTIN

FULL CIRCLE

 

Marking any occasion petitions a moment of time. Celebrated events enable us to take note, reflect, signify and pause the journey. Full Circle is an exhibition that marks an occasion; 20 years of making for individualistic Melbourne-based artists Linda Hughes, Sim Luttin and Katrina Tyler. Three talented jewellery artists who met in the bunkers of RMIT Gold and Silversmithing as eager students, ready to accept new challenges and, no doubt, quench their thirst for knowledge from industry peers.

 

Fast forward to 2019, and after cycles of development, countless individual journey's and years of honing technical skills, Hughes, Luttin and Tyler commemorate their full circle. With thriving studio practises and sustained careers in the national and international jewellery community, these artists have remained close friends since 1999 and acknowledge that while their work is diverse, they “are united in creating intimate handmade objects that are abundant in creative integrity and dynamism”.[1]

 

Full Circle presents new jewellery and object works that expand each artist’s existing areas of enquiry. Installed across the foyers of Sofitel Melbourne on Collins (in cabinets and mounted on purpose-built large wall displays), each separate installation considers its site, while purposefully interacting with each other. There exists a subtle sharing of concepts across these individual works. The industrial landscape, how we as humans engage with it and value its beauty and utility, is explored in various works. In this exhibition, we also explore the effects of time. We observe the everyday and acknowledge the unnoticed events and stories through the eyes and skills of Hughes, Luttin and Tyler.

 

Linda Hughes is an established jewellery artist. Known for her distinctive use of graphic lines and colour, she has stripped these new works of colour and concentrated on ‘projecting the line[2]’ and working exclusively in white. With this colour shift, comes a sense of lightness and self-assurance that, for me, tilts a little into Mid-century modernist design.

 

Hughes explores the life of roadside marker posts in Full Circle. This new monochromatic series of laminate, wood and sterling silver brooches and pendants extends her fascination and dedication to patterning, in particular, the stripe - its history, everyday existence and utilitarian use in signs and markings. For over a decade, Hughes has been consumed by stripes and does not see a linear form or calm repeated symmetry like some, instead experiences fluid movements and reactions claiming “stripes are very noisy and demanding…the stripe is a device of agitation…stripes are the small nervous strokes of the brush within a composition – a restlessness where the surface is never still”. [3] The bold pattern of a stripe is hard to ignore.

 

Hughes enables the surface to heave with breath, creating a dynamic optical illusion onto a flat surface via the linearity of stripes. Conceptually and technically driven, Hughes’ refined and exacting skills continue to play tricks on the viewer, who perhaps expect a machine manufactured finish rather than the meticulous graphic finish from one of Melbourne’s gifted artisans.

 

Sim Luttin has established an art practice synonymous with sophistication, impeccable technical skill and contemplative surfaces. Her scale is intimate and materials reflective; silver, copper, steel, patina, photographs, sublimated aluminium and glass. Influenced by nature in her work for many years, Luttin's current interest is in exploring time-based projects that respond to the everyday.

 

Her latest series, ‘Momento(o)s of Disquiet and Beauty’ reflects her ongoing and keen observations into the everyday and unnoticed elements of the contemporary streetscapes. Drawing from recent travels to New York, Luttin elevates the unnoticed and mass-produced metalwork of the streets - the road pothole and manhole, the drain vent, the window grill – and transforms them into intimate adornment. “I encountered many circular and geometric solid and open grid constructions and began to see the beauty in the formal elements and repetition…I could visualise keepsakes that could be worn on the body serving as urban signifiers and reminders of moments past.”[4]

 

Exploring the histories and surprising handmade production methods of some of the New York metalwork[5], Luttin makes sense of these everyday objects through her conceptual reflections, research processes and experienced craftsmanship. Consisting of pendants and brooches, these new works are accompanied by a series of edition snapshot street photographs printed on sublimated aluminium. These act as part reference, part documentation but stand alone as considered photographic objects in their own right.  Photography is integral to Luttin’s development of new objects. As a prolific photographer (on her iPhone) and commentator, she deftly draws and orders from her image library, conceiving new works and asking more questions about shared and unknown histories. Luttin’s practice plots a course through time: examining notions of ritual, personal authenticity and materiality. Her objects mark time and celebrate the periphery in Luttin’s distinctively skilful way.

 

For Katrina Tyler, it is all a matter of shifting perspectives. In continuing her explorations of material, scale and the potential of shapes, Tyler is fuelled by a familiar industrial landscape and cycles of life and time. Balance, movement and a sense of physical uncertainty are evident in this new series of playful and coloured copper and enamel wall pieces, titled Industrial poise and a series of oxidised sterling silver and enamel brooches under the series title, Altered plane brooches. This new series references corrugated iron, a quintessential sign of the Australian landscape, and Tyler plays with scale and palette to personalise and reinterpret this industrialised story.

 

Living and working in Melbourne’s inner west, Tyler observes first-hand the simultaneous beauty and necessity of busy shipping and freight train yards. An evidenced technical and industrial poise indicates a sense of play and confidence in both materials and composition. By interrogating her evolving relationship to industry and commerce, Tyler has developed a visceral response to her landscape stating, “The abundance and repetition of shipping containers, all with evidence of a life of use and purpose with knocks, scrapes, repairs, a patchwork of paint…completed by a multitude of invisible hands.”[6]

 

Materials, place and scale are key considerations for any object maker. Understanding Tyler also produces large (metalwork) public sculptural works, that are often activated, provides a layer of intrigue for her audience as she continues to push new limits. Known for her exceptional technical skills, Tyler deftly combines her unique understanding of human-scale and interaction to simultaneously generate larger sculptural works, while continuing to construct her intimate jewellery works as evidenced in Full Circle.

 

For each of these diverse artists, what resonates is their subtle ability to bring to light the hidden life of things and forces that often go unnoticed. Hughes, Luttin and Tyler steadfastly explore the markings of time and the life cycles of objects affected by human interactions. These artists have firmly marked their occasion. Widely acknowledged for significant individual and collective impacts made to Australia’s contemporary jewellery scene, Hughes, Luttin and Tyler have come full circle in honouring both their craft and friendships. I can now only imagine their singular full circles spirally off and taking each to even greater heights.

 

Sarah Bond (2019)

 

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ENDNOTES
 

[1] Collective artist statement shared with author.

[2] Linda Hughes in conversation with author

[3]Linda Hughes in conversation with author.

[4] Sim Luttin in conversation with the author.

[5] Luttin’s research revealed the NYC manhole covers were handmade in India. See Natasha Rahejathe’s documentary ‘Cast in India’ as background. https://castinindia.com

[6] Katrina Tyler in conversation with the author

 

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