Craft ACT review: Bodywork, Table Tools and Shoal

Bodywork: Australian Jewellery 1970- 2010 is a National Gallery of Australia touring exhibition curated by Dr Robert Bell. It is a showcase for the fine collection of Australian jewellery held at the Australian National Gallery and has returned to Canberra after touring 10 regional galleries. The exhibition brings to light the work of more than 30 contemporary Australian jewellers and, if the exhibition is tempered by the need to be educational for students, it is none the worse for that. Even if the thematic divisions of the works are debatable, and most works would not be out of place in any of the six conceptual categories, they at least provide a talking point. The artists in the exhibition, many of whom would be familiar to those who are interested in contemporary jewellery, have several things in common – a craftsman-like interest in process including new technologies, an appreciation of the properties of the materials used and an understanding of how objects are worn on the body.

A lot of contemporary jewellery has moved away from traditional mores of social adornment into sculptural statement pieces. The works in this exhibition are more modest in scale and track a middle path between being part of a contemporary dialogue that involves body art while also being jewellery that can be worn in a traditional fashion. It is only Susan Cohn's condom holder in the form of a large black insect-like pendant (Systematic Gibsonia No.2) and Robert Foster's warlike artillery belt Bandaliero II swinging across the body to hold personal belongings that have a slightly louche element. Delicate pieces like Marian Hosking's silver pierced brooch Angophora and Gillian Rainer's filigree-style Mesembryanthemum brooch attest to the influence of nature as an inspiration for Australian artists. Robert Baines' necklace The Book is a romantic link with the goldsmithing traditions of the past despite its apocalyptic imagery and is a work of his I had not seen before. Indeed this is a great opportunity to make the acquaintance of some of the work that is held in the National Gallery's collection of jewellery much of which remains unseen by the general public.

The exhibition in Gallery 2 entitled Table Tools is by Alison Jackson – a young Canberra-based artist who works in gold and silversmithing. Since graduating in 2008 from the ANU Canberra School of Art Gold and Silver Smithing workshop, Jackson has established her own studio, Pocket Space, in Queanbeyan. She has also been the recipient of many awards and grants including most recently the Rosalie Gascoigne Memorial Award to assist her with the development of a new range of tableware.

Jackson's work in this exhibition is a romantic essay in the art of making domestic objects that follow familiar domestic forms but also have another existence as beautiful hand crafted objects. In the delicacy and sheer input of attention to function, form and surface interest, I am reminded of ceramic artist Prue Venables' porcelain sieves, ladles and tea utensils. Both make the functional object into a small sculptural work that enables us to see these objects in a new context.

Jackson has made a series of hollowware utensils in various metals, oxidised copper stainless steel and sterling silver.

The small open forms in the Wobble series have a fluidity about them that creates an energetic tension between the fluidity and the hardness of their metal forms. The two sets of pouring vessels in respectively stainless steel and copper have faceted forms rather like the way paper is folded in the art of origami. Cheese knives and slides have a nice little twist to their flat shapes that makes a clever handle. Jackson has arranged a row of small utensils, whisks, bowls, spoons and scoops like a sculptural assemblage of harmonious forms united by form and function. Among these utensils is a set of tactile whisks that ask to be held and used and several slides and spoons bound with jute string handles. All reflect the artist's interest in clean lines, balanced forms and inviting tactile surfaces.

A group of works called 10 vessels, 10 days is in response to the artist's self-set challenge to make one vessel each day using traditional silversmithing skills. These small beautifully wrought vessels in fine silver, copper and binding wire bear the hammer marks of their making enriched by soft and light-reflecting tactile surfaces. Jackson's art of working directly with the metal calls to mind the traditions of ancient gold and silversmithing where the inherent qualities of the metal were realised. However she is not above introducing an element of playfulness and in one of the vessels there is a little ruffle of binding wire like a bird's tail at its rim and another is "stitched" with wire along its edge.

Mariella McKinley is a glass artist from Melbourne. Her small refined glass works based on the structure of sea shells in the Crucible Gallery share Alison Jackson's interest in fine detail and skilled craftsmanship. McKinley's glass objects swim across the showcase shelves like a new form of marine life. Their round glass forms have the patterned intricacy that demonstrates the artist's skill in using a technique of complex cane work to reinterpret the intricate patterns of nature.

Although so superficially different, these three exhibitions at Craft ACT share the same ethos. They all display works by artists who are in a contemporary dialogue with invention and creativity, who are making new forms and using new technologies while also engaging in ongoing dialogues that bridge the past and the future.