Gala Jane

Art or Not?

25 September - 6 October 2024

G4

Opening Night

Friday 27 September | 6 - 8pm

◼︎

Gala Jane (she/her) is a multi-disciplinary feminist artist known for using bold text, colours and found objects to create a dialogue around women’s safety and creating safe spaces. Graduating with a Bachelor of Art and Design from Southern Cross University in Lismore on Bundjalung Country, she is now based in Naarm, Melbourne studying a Masters of Contemporary Art at the Victoria College of the Arts.

With her commercial signwriting training, she embraces text and hand painting throughout her practice. Her earlier solo exhibition Fine, Thanks explored her experience of surviving the Lismore floods of 2022. It saw found objects, film, rugs and signage to present the experience of living through a natural disaster in Australia.

She started tufting rugs after the floods as a new activity that was free of mud, from there she has excelled at the medium and have had works in solo and group shows throughout NSW and Victoria. Currently she is exploring institutional critique and the relationship between art and craft in a gallery setting.

There is an inherent divide in western culture between arts and crafts where crafts are seen as “less than” art. Craft doesn’t belong in a gallery, it belongs at a market or on websites like Etsy. Craft is functional, art is there to be admired. Craft is common, art is exclusive. We have been told this, shown this and seen this. Craft doesn’t belong here. But why not? If you’re an artist, surely everything you make is art, no matter the materials. Duchamp put a urinal in the gallery, surely we can put crafted work in and it will be considered art.

Gala Jane (she/her) began tufting rugs after losing her studio, artworks and tools in the Lismore floods in 2022. After deciding she needed something new in her life to make up for all that was lost she bought a tufting gun and began making contemporary rugs. Using her existing text based practice she made rugs with bold words and phrases, ready to hang on gallery walls. This new found technique helped her to start creating again and to her this was a just different medium to create art.

There was a small problem though. She would hear choruses of “you should sell these rugs on Etsy” coming from all directions. Gala spent a long time trying to unpack her ick whenever this was said. Questioning why she had such an issue with being told this. Are they not worthy of a gallery? She questioned her own preconceptions, she is an artist who exhibits in galleries, why would she sell it on Etsy? Through researching the divide between arts and crafts she realised that these preconceived ideas we have about what deserves to exhibit in galleries was invading her own art making. Just because the techniques were crafty doesn’t mean they don’t belong on a gallery wall. She is an artist, she makes art.

So, what happens when you take a household item like a rug, something that traditionally would have been crafted with a functional purpose and place it on the gallery wall? Is it art yet? What happens when you place an “artwork” on the floor of a gallery? Is that still art? 

Contact
Phone : (03) 9482 3550
mail@redgallery.com.au

Address
157 St Georges Rd
Fitzroy North, Victoria, 3068
Map

How to get here
Tram: Route 11
Stop 21 just north of Edinburgh Gardens

Melway Ref: 30B12
Parking in nearby streets

Bus: 504 (Reid Street)