Craft ACT's Emerging Contemporaries exhibition brings young artists to the fore

Reviewer: Kerry-Anne Cousins

Craft ACT has begun the year doing what it does best – showcasing the work of young contemporary artists and designers and bringing their work into the public arena. Emerging Contemporaries is an exhibition of the work of recent graduate and emerging artists which presents a diverse collection of design innovation, furniture, jewellery and textiles. What gives this exhibition its edge are the innovative ideas and the technical knowledge partnered with a high standard of craftsmanship.

The furniture made from natural materials is particularly reassuring in its usability and aesthetic appeal. While you may sprawl in the generous depths of Saxon Crinis' Low Sunroom Chair, the chair itself – made from warm dark honey coloured Tasmanian Blackwood – is compact and efficiently constructed.

Robin Clancy's Low Folding Table in Spotted Gum balances beautifully on one pair of joined legs. Clancy's design is influenced by the economy of Japanese domestic space and has a clever device to enable the table to be easily folded flat for storage. Sara Lindsay's bold design Interplay is also versatile. Lindsay has created a number of faceted wood blocks (the number can be flexible) and has arranged them as a sculptural group. However, by using powerful neodymium magnets, the separate forms can be joined together as seating. I would imagine this witty design (a sort of Lego for grown-ups) would have great possibilities in small facilities that needed occasional seating. Josh Rummukainen also balances aesthetics with function. His prototype design (Izumi) for a water tap faucet has been created using complex digital technology. The tightly packed helical cords in the faucet maintain exact water temperature and water pressure. However, the sleek water flow and the hourglass patterns of water that this elegant design produces draw our attention to the magical nature of the water itself.

Two textile artists, Margaret Kemarre Ross and Kieren Karritpul McTaggart, work in a different medium. They also draw our attention to the Earth's natural resources in their intuitive but sophisticated textiles. Kemarre Ross's delicate silk shawl is printed with small carefully arranged images of bush tucker in the earth tones of the outback. Karritpul McTaggart's linen wall hanging in warm tones of grey and white (there is also a version in red) is a refined and orchestrated pattern of marks and dots that cleverly suggests both the structure of fish nets and the lively movement when they move in the water. In the adjoining Crucible Showcase, two emerging Aboriginal artists from Bula'bula Arts at Ramingining (Marley Djangarri and Linda Ganyila) have a well-executed collection of bush string bags that bring into the gallery the tang and colours of the bush.

In the field of textiles Tundi-Rose Hammond's Olaf the XL coil creature – a fuzzy white human-size "costume" made from cable ties and packing foam – would have to be a standout creation. The accompanying video of this costume being worn in a dance performance is both silly and strangely endearing.

Meredith Hughes' exhibition Looking for the I in desire is a gentle exploration of memory and loss in an approach shaped by a Buddhist philosophy. In our society flowers are part of the outward sign of loss and remembrance. Traditionally left at gravesides, the placing of flowers in actual sites of significance has become more widespread. In recognition of this tradition the artist uses floral motifs – cut, sewn, printed and stencilled – to make up her installations. Her large wall piece called Even is an arrangement of discarded petals of artificial flowers found in Bookham cemetery. Each petal is symbolic of someone who has died. During the period of embroidering their name on an individual petal, in the spirit of her Buddhist beliefs, the artist takes on that loss.

In an interactive group project called Looking for the I in desire, Hughes asked participants to send her images of floral motifs that hold personal memories. She meditated on these tokens and wrote her responses to them. These poetic essays, the motifs and the memories of the participants have been gathered in two artist's books modelled on pechas – traditional Tibetan loose-leaf books. I encourage you to read these contributions and spend some time in this small exhibition that initially seems so artlessly unassuming.

Reminiscences and Reflections is a solo exhibition by Mi-Kyung Myung who is an artist of Korean descent living in Australia. Mi-Kyung Myung works in paper – a traditional Asian art form. She brings together images, forms, colours and ideas from living in two very different cultures. Her small, precisely folded and stitched assemblages in hand-made Korean paper are exact in their alignment of design and construction. They are influenced by Korean quilts or pojagi so, although made from paper, they have a strong textile connection. Maroon, dark greens and oranges predominate and to a Western eye are interesting and unusual colour combinations reflecting, no doubt, a more Asian sensibility. These origami-like constructions are pleasing and self-sufficient in themselves butappear to float uneasily against a framed and painted backboard. I felt they need to be liberated from this conventional method of presentation.

Myung's large wall pieces, however, are anything but traditional. Made from twisted and rolled paper in bold colour combinations they are strikingly unconventional and indeed mysterious and elusive both in imagery and meaning.