The art of everyday objects.

How do we make sense of the world? For some of history's earliest collectors, the answer lay in gathering remarkable objects - natural specimens, artworks, scientific instruments and curious artefacts - into rooms known as Wunderkammern, or Cabinets of Curiosity. These collections celebrated discovery, inviting visitors to marvel at the extraordinary hidden within the everyday. Many artists approach still life in much the same way.

Naomi White 'The Collection'

The works featured in our current exhibition, ‘Still, Alive’, transform familiar objects into vessels of wonder, elevating the ordinary into something poetic. Whether it is Elena Kolotusha’s collected beach artefacts, or Naomi White’s shelf of discovery, artists often use careful arrangement and observation to reveal that the objects surrounding us can carry stories, memories and unexpected meaning.

Nicola Mason 'Shuffling Cones'

Howard Arkley 'Untitled (Cactoid Composition)'

Similarly, many artists embrace the unexpected. Nicola Mason's ‘Shuffling Cones’ animates humble banksia cones, pairing them with repurposed ramekins to create a composition that feels wonderfully alive. Kate Vella and Jesse Dayan similarly construct thoughtful arrangements in which everyday objects become curiously placed characters.

And what is the Wunderkammer, if not a way of telling a story through objects? In the works of Marie Mansfield, her detailed still lifes are infused with dramatic atmosphere, each composition a fragment of a story waiting to be uncovered. In Sam Suttie's 'Free Birds', these animated creatures are suspended in time, curiously perched on a cage that no longer confines them.

And sometimes, curiosity takes an altogether different form. Paul Yore’s exuberant mixed-media works draw on kitsch, popular culture and political imagery, assembling unlikely materials into vibrant compositions that challenge conventional ideas of beauty and value.

Paul Yore 'Vaccinophobia'

These works remind us that the most fascinating discoveries are often hiding in plain sight. Together, they reveal how artists transform collections of objects into collections of ideas, inviting us to see the familiar with fresh eyes.

Zai Kuang 'Food #56'

Nicola Mason 'The measuring cup duck and the banksia'

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