Chris Twiney at Gaffa - 5 June

I haven't been to Gaffa for a little while, but the email newsletter piqued my interest last week.  Luxury packaging design rebranded with rural towns? Well that ticks a few of the Big Lamington's boxes so we nipped over during the week to learn more about Chris Twiney and his show 'Rural Gucci'.

Turns out Chris Twiney is an emerging visual artist based in Sydney.  And according to his CV, this is his first solo show.  Even better he has a good little website so you can see more of his earlier work.  Chris is apparently using the luxury branding to highlight the widening economic divide between cities and rural towns in Australia.  I love the concept here, with its hints to Elmgren & Dragset's Prada Marfa and those t-shirts that say "London / New York / Paris / Moree". My only question is in regards the disparate towns presented. They are all over the map, literally.  Yass, Collector, Berrima, Braidwood, Hobrook (all NSW) and Glenrowan (VIC) are all within striking distance of an ANU arts student, I guess, but they're not on the same road trip.  If you were going for disadvantaged towns you could probably pick some better ones than Berrima.  And if you were being a little more collector friendly, you could have picked some better known towns as well!  I mean Holbrook?  Anyhow.  My favourite pieces involved the packaging, but then again I love the aesthetics over at the Dieline. Braidwood got the Hermes treatment (pictured top), Holbrook got the Tiffany blue box, and Collector got the Chanel white shopping bag.  The screen prints were good, again I liked Braidwood and also the YSL version of Yass (pictured above).  There was also a great photo were Chris had re-fashioned the sign at the entrance to Yass.  All in all a great debut solo show and I will be interested to see where Chris takes this theme.

Points:  3 points to the Braidwood box.  2 points will go to one of the screen prints.  I probably liked Braidwood's the best again and while it is looking like I have a soft spot for this town, regular readers would know I'd prefer something from the Hunter or the Southern Highlands!  The 1 point will go to the LVMH wheelbarrow (above).  This didn't really question the economic plight of towns but was a nice fun inclusion to the luxury theme.  Great show.