Beautiful Tensions: Gray Street Workshop
celebrates forty years

In celebration of Gray Street Workshop’s 40th anniversary, JamFactory presents Beautiful Tensions, a major touring exhibition honouring the momentous legacy and talent of the workshop by showcasing new work by the four current partners: Jess Dare, Lisa Furno, Sue Lorraine and Catherine Truman.

 Established in 1985, Gray Street Workshop is one of Australia’s longest running collectively run studios for artists working in the field of contemporary jewellery and object making. The uncompromising commitment of this group of artists to their work and to studio-based practice has enabled Gray Street Workshop to evolve into one of Australia’s most exciting and respected workshops.

 Beautiful Tensions brings together new work by the four current partners and is the culmination of two years of work and research. Witty, playful and poignant in equal measure, each body of work is distinctive, yet share certain themes and formal concerns. This timely exhibition articulates the group’s shared commitment to the value of making and the power of objects to transmit meaning. The way their shared themes are articulated so differently in the exhibition is a cogent expression of how the group works, in their own words, ‘separately together’.

The exhibition will be launched at JamFactory Adelaide before touring to 12 venues nationally across SA, VIC, TAS, NSW and QLD. It is accompanied by a 152-page hard-cover monograph, co-published by JamFactory and Wakefield Press, and written by author and Gray Street Workshop co-founder Anne Brennan.

Beautiful Tensions: Gray Street Workshop celebrates forty years is a JamFactory touring exhibition supported by the Visions of Australia touring program, an Australian Government program aiming to improve access to cultural material for all Australians.

Exhibitors: Jess Dare, Lisa Furno, Sue Lorraine, Catherine Truman

Jess Dare, Impermanence, 2024, installation (detail), Photographer: Grant Hancock. 

Melting Point

For thousands of years, the process of metal casting has been widely utilised worldwide in the creation of a wide range of objects including tools, weapons, jewellery, sculpture and mechanical components. An ancient technique dating back to the Bronze Age (c.3300-1200 BCE), metal casting was the catalyst for some of humanity’s earliest advancements in manufacturing, engineering and the decorative arts. An inexpensive way to create multiples of complex objects, metal casting typically involves transferring molten metal from a crucible into a mould to create a positive metal cast object, with the most common techniques including  lost-wax casting, plaster mould casting, die casting and sand casting.

Fusing ancient techniques with modern design aesthetics, Melting Point pays homage to the tradition of metal casting by presenting the work of five contemporary designers who transform the raw material of metal into refined craft and design objects. Using a variety of different traditional metal casting methods, Andrew Carvolth, Nathan Martin, Julian Leigh May, Annie Paxton and Chrystal Rimmer reinterpret these techniques through a distinctly modern set of design principles and aesthetics. Through their mastery of metal casting, these contemporary artists both preserve and challenge traditional craft practices, pushing the materials and processes to their limits in the creation of new objects, shapes and forms.

Exhibitors: Andrew Carvolth, Nathan Martin, Julian Leigh May, Annie Paxton, Chrystal Rimmer

Saturday Yard Work, MELANCHOLY VESSEL 10, 2025, Aluminium, 310 x 200 x 200

Josina Pumani & Leshaye Swan

Josina Pumani & Leshaye Swan presents the work of two studio artists from the APY Art Centre Collective, an organisation that supports Indigenous artists from the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands, regional South Australia, and Adelaide.

Josina Pumani, winner of the 2024 Emerging Artist Prize at the Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Awards (NATSIAAs) and 2025 Wynne Prize finalist, and Leshaye Swan, also a NATSIAA finalist, are ceramicists working at the Collective Art Centre and members of Blak Manta First Nations ceramics collective. Both artists tell stories of Country and Community through clay.

Hailing from Mimili Community on the APY Lands, they now reside in Adelaide. Josina’s pots explore the story of the Maralinga and Emu Field nuclear tests and their enduring impact on her family. Leshaye creates large-scale vessels, inscribing them with depictions of plants and flowers found around Bucket Well, her family’s homeland, outside of Mimili.

Exhibitors: Josina Pumani & Leshaye Swan

JamFactory ICON 2025 Aunty Ellen Trevorrow:
Weaving Through Time

JamFactory’s ICON series celebrates the achievements of South Australia’s most influential visual artists working in craft-based media. Aunty Ellen Trevorrow is a proud Ngarrindjeri woman and a prolific, internationally acclaimed weaver with over 40 years of weaving experience. Weaving through Time is a celebration of Aunty Ellen’s unwavering dedication to culture, community and innovation in contemporary Ngarrindjeri weaving.

Curated by Ngarrindjeri, Kaurna, Narrunga woman Carly Tarkari Dodd, Weaving Through Time showcases predominantly new works by Aunty Ellen, produced with her long-time collaborator, Dr Jelina Haines. The exhibition visually and textually documents Aunty Ellen’s evolution as an artist, from her early traditional baskets and fish traps to her recent large-scale sculptures and wearable works, including dresses, jewellery and textiles. These more recent works highlight her two-decades-long collaboration with Dr Haines and demonstrate the depth and breadth of her artistic practice.

In Weaving Through Time, Aunty Ellen carries tens of thousands of years of knowledge, passed down from her Elders. Her work continues an essential legacy: the transmission of culture to future generations, ensuring the continuation of culture.

The exhibition will be launched at JamFactory Adelaide as part of SALA Festival before touring to JamFactory Seppeltfield for Tarnanthi, followed by 6 venues nationally across SA, VIC, NSW and QLD. It is accompanied by a 120-page monograph, supported by the Gordon Darling Foundation and written by Carly Tarkari Dodd with contributions by Dominic Guerrera, Jelina Haines, and Aunty Ellen Trevorrow.

JamFactory ICON Aunty Ellen Trevorrow: Weaving Through Time is a JamFactory touring exhibition supported by the Visions of Australia touring program, an Australian Government program aiming to improve access to cultural material for all Australians.

Exhibitors: Aunty Ellen Trevorrow with Jelina Haines

Curated by Carly Tarkari Dodd

Display furniture designed and fabricated by JamFactory’s Furniture and Metal Studios

Aunty Ellen Trevorrow, Swamp Weed (Selliera radicans) Woven Bag, 2024, Sedge grass, quandong seeds, Photo: Connor Patterson