BAR HOLIDAY | After-hours Salon

Participants

Anne U
allowing alchemical transformations to reveal the final form. Influenced by surreal and oneiric visions, Anne reflects on abstract memories and the absurdity of dream imagery, allowing subconscious ideas to emerge in intriguingly grotesque yet evocative forms. Designed for adaptability, her work exists in the liminal space between sculpture and furniture, reshaping the relationship between objects and space and inviting new sensory experiences and interactions. Anne has held residencies at Northcote Pottery Supplies and At The Above, where she presented her inaugural solo exhibition. Her work has been showcased in Melbourne Design Week, Craft Contemporary, and 1000 Vases Paris edition and has been featured in various creative campaigns and editorial publications, including in Vogue Australia

Annie Paxton Studio
Annie Paxton is a multidisciplinary designer based on the lands of the Kulin Nation. She works as an architect with the very clever people at Kennedy Nolan, alongside her creative practice which navigates the juncture between architecture and furniture/object, with a keen interest in how design drives and is driven by the poetics of everyday life. With the tendency to imbue works with patina and the trace of the hand, the interrogation of time/process as a material is often a salient driver in her practice.

Billie Civello

Brodie Cullenn
Brodie Cullens practice is typically incorporates the creation of painterly assemblage works in an attempt to reframe the civic space as a public archive of bodily thresholds and how they are governed in lived experience.  Cullens practice often blurs the boundaries between painting, sculpture, and installation, incorporating elements of bodily presence and action by attempting themes of anthropomorphism during the process of making pictures, which he likes to refer to as documents of events.

Chong Office
Working closely with materials, aesthetics and the senses, Chong Office brings together eccentric yet functional artworks that border furniture, sculptures and crafted objects. Refusing to be categorised by a particular style or identity, Chong Office embraces the ambiguity and contradiction throughout the creative process. The intimacy from personal interactions and experiences is intertwined in the outcomes of Chong Office, which bends the rules of what many consider traditional. It's merely flexible.

Claire Ellis
Claire Ellis is a Canadian-born ceramic artist and designer based on the lands of the Kulin Nation. Influenced by her former career as a chef, her practice is informed by a focus on existing resources and deep experimentation. In 2022 her work won the innovation award at the Warrandyte Pottery Expo and has been a finalist in several art and design prizes including The Churchie in 2024. Her work has been exhibited internationally and has been published in magazines, journals and books.

Ella Saddington
Ella Saddington is an experimental designer, researcher, and artist currently based in Melbourne (Naarm/Birrarung-ga) in Australia. Her practice explores the intersection of craft, material culture, and design, focusing on reactivating pre-industrial techniques within contemporary contexts. Her work has been exhibited widely in Australia, with notable presentations at the Melbourne Art Fair (2024), the National Gallery of Victoria (2023), Oigall Projects (2023), Craft Victoria (2022) and Sophie Gannon Gallery (2021), and is held in private collections internationally.

John Budd
John Budd is a industrial designer based in Melbourne (Naarm/Birrarung-ga) with a career focus on assisting artists, creative consultancies and manufacturers in developing and delivering clear, considered design solutions that integrate seamlessly into the built environment. His work spans commercial sculpture, placemaking and activations, infrastructure, and architectural way-finding.

Julian Leigh May
Julian Leigh May (they/them) is an experimental designer embracing a spectrum of disciplines and mediums based in Melbourne (Naarm/Birrarung-ga). Their work transcends barriers between art and design, and spans furniture, lighting and object design. Central to their practice is an interest in redefining everyday objects through new narratives, material experimentations and forms. Although early in their career, their work has been shown nationally and internationally, including Melbourne Design Week, Oigall Projects, Craft Contemporary, the Taiwan Design Expo in 2022, and MELBOURNE NOW at the National Gallery of Victoria in 2023, to name a few.

Neighbourhood Studio
NEIGHBOURHOOD STUDIO (by Lucas Wearne) is a Melbourne-based studio working across a variety of materials, techniques and styles. Best known for his natural limestone sculptures and hybrid objects that balance form, materiality, and process, Lucas’ experimental approach to object construction is process-driven and centres on the use of the hands and body.

Saturday Yard Work
SATURDAY YARD WORK by Nathan Martin is a practice based on Kaurna Country that aims to find a medium between sculpture, craft, and functional objects by delving into material experimentation and processes. Embracing unorthodox production methods, Nathan seeks to uncover unexpected visual and sensory outcomes manifested in form and texture. Through the crafting of unique pieces, his experimental and process-driven design ethos celebrates the unconventional, embracing the imperfect and the intricacies of handmade objects.