Beautiful Tensions: Gray Street Workshop Celebrates Forty Years

In celebration of Gray Street Workshop’s 40th anniversary, Beautiful Tensions, is a major touring exhibition by the JamFactory, Adelaide, honouring the momentous legacy and talent of the workshop by showcasing new work by the four current partners: Jess Dare, Lisa Furno, Sue Lorraine and Catherine Truman.  

Beautiful Tensions is the culmination of two years of work and research. Witty, playful and poignant in equal measure, each body of work is distinctive, yet share certain themes and formal concerns. This timely exhibition articulates the group’s shared commitment to the value of making and the power of objects to transmit meaning. The way their shared themes are articulated so differently in the exhibition is a cogent expression of how the group works, in their own words, ‘separately together’.  

Established in 1985, Gray Street Workshop is one of Australia’s longest running collectively run studios for artists working in the field of contemporary jewellery and object making. The uncompromising commitment of this group of artists to their work and to studio-based practice has enabled Gray Street Workshop to evolve into one of Australia’s most exciting and respected workshops.

Above image: Current Gray Street Workshop partners Lisa Furno, Sue Lorraine, Jess Dare and Catherine Truman. Photo: Connor Patterson.

Header image: Jess Dare, Impermanence, 2024, installation (detail), porcelain, mild steel, 360 x 1800 x 720 mm. Photographer: Grant Hancock. 

Beautiful Tensions: Gray Street Workshop celebrates forty years is a JamFactory touring exhibition supported by the Visions of Australia touring program, an Australian Government program aiming to improve access to cultural material for all Australians.