Bloom 1, 2008

Craft Victoria
23 January – 7 March
Gallery 3

http://www.craftvic.asn.au/gallery/2009/young.html

Melinda Young’s Take a Ball of Thread… is an ongoing project exploring the conceptual limits of jewellery. The works in the exhibition have been produced within a set of self-imposed boundaries: each piece must include pink cotton sewing thread from a found industrial spool sourced by the artist; additional materials must be gleaned from whatever is available in the artist’s studio; the pieces made must be wearable; the project must cease when the thread runs out.

Take a Ball of Thread… has become a vehicle for pushing and re-working jewellery and craft-based techniques. This will be the first showing of the project in Melbourne.
Opening Thursday 22 January 2009, 6-8pm. Artist talks 5:30pm.

About the artist
Melinda Young was born in England and came to Australia as a child in 1976, she has lived and worked in Sydney ever since. Melinda has a Master of Visual Arts from Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney. She has participated in over 80 exhibitions in Australia and overseas since 1997 and in 2008 won the inaugural Jewellers and Metalsmiths Group of Australia NSW ‘Profile Award’ for an Established Artist. Her practice spans one-off exhibition pieces, bespoke commissions and a limited edition production range. The narratives evoked by objects fascinate Melinda- her exhibition works often take the form of small colour studies, each having the potential to tell a range of stories. Her surroundings provide continual inspiration and materials for her work, from found objects to architecture, the landscape and the social condition of the body. For her everything is precious, even the ephemeral – it is the story behind it – that marker of individual or shared time, place and experience that creates meaning and value.
In addition to working from the jewellers’ bench, Melinda has worked at several galleries, curated contemporary jewellery exhibitions, written about jewellery and craft practice for various publications and participated in workshops and master classes. Since 2000 she has taught jewellery at tertiary level and at Community Colleges in Sydney as well as overseas in the United Arab Emirates. Currently Melinda teaches in the Jewellery and Object Design Department at the Design Centre, Enmore.

www.melindayoung.net