DENFAIR + Interiors Australia
Craft ACT is delighted to be sending four designers from our membership to represent the ACT at the Interiors Australia + DENFAIR, Australia's Next Top Designers showcase in Melbourne this week: Associate Members Louis Grant and Sam Sheppard, and General Members Madeline Cardone and Maitlan Brown.
Shining a spotlight on emerging designers, makers and creatives, Australia’s Next Top Designer’s Showcase curates an array of breakthrough products and concepts shaping the future of design. This is an opportunity for creatives from all across Australia to place their work in front of industry-leading adjudicators, who select the most outstanding works for a final shortlist.
Interiors Australia + DENFAIR is on from 10-12 February at the Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre. Check out the official DENFAIR program below.
https://interiorsaustralia.com.au/
Meet the designers //
Maitlan Brown
Maitlan is a Sydney based industrial designer. Her work centres upon finding innovative and creative solutions, catalysed through her exploration of new technologies, mediums and processes. Her recent work focuses on the possibilities of large scale additive manufacturing and its implications for new sustainable product typologies in both form, composition and function.
The Articular chaise is the result of an exploration into the possibilities of sustainable, large-scale 3d Printing. The work is produced through leveraging 6-axis industrial robot arm fitted with prototype plastic extruder. The geometric freedoms of the printing method have enabled the sculptural form of the chaise, not possible through traditional moulding processes.
https://www.sixstitchdesign.com.au/
Madeline Cardone
Madeline Cardone holds a Bachelor of Art History & Curatorship/Bachelor of Visual Arts (Honours). Though primarily trained in glass, she has an interest in ceramic making processes. Her objects have a minimal, reductive aesthetic, developed through a sensitivity towards subtle surface and refined form.
This collection of ceramic objects focuses on form, feel and function. Their matte black surfaces evoke the absorptive qualities of shadow, and their silhouettes are minimal and timeless. The objects are slip cast in black earthenware, which are individually hand finished and internally glazed. The exterior is left unglazed to emphasise the material’s inherent tactility.
Louis Grant
Louis Grant is an emerging artist whose practice explores the paradox of the queer self, searching for an authentic queer voice between the exaggerated ‘performance of self’ and the suppression of ‘true self’. Working primarily with studio glass, Grant graduated in 2018 from the ANU School of Art + Design, glass workshop.
His work, ‘luck of the draw only draws the unlucky’ is from the series Breakable Heaven. Louis has developed a material voice and understanding of how he creates using glass as a medium, mainly delving into the idea of glass being queer. Glass is scientifically an amorphous solid, it is another state of matter that is neither liquid nor solid. From my perspective, this makes glass non-binary; QUEER.
http://www.louisgrantcreative.com/
Sam Sheppard
Sam is committed to crafting work that stands out, drawing inspiration from a broad range of artistic movements. Combining the highest standards of craftsmanship with a love for sleek design and coherence with the works environment. He works primarily in wood with a focus on sustainability and respect for material.
These bedsides aim to create a perception of complete softness in a rigid material, to complement the soft furnishings of the bedroom. Drawing on traditional sculptural and wood-carving, techniques and modernising their application. The curve of the drawer is finished by hand to ensure perfect tactile consistency.
https://www.hopmansfurniture.com/