Quercus launch at The Naked Bud

Local artist Karen Golland has teamed up with retro retailer The Naked Bud to create a pop up exhibition that officially opens to the public on Saturday 14 December at 11am. This collaborative venture celebrates The Naked Bud’s fourth year of business and hopes to inspire more temporary exhibition opportunities within the Bathurst community.

“We’ve had a great four years in Keppel Street and thought this milestone provided us with the perfect chance to collaborate with a local artist,” said Michael Hope from The Naked Bud. “The idea has grown from some really interesting conversations we’ve had this year about how we could increase the number of opportunities for local artists in Keppel Street. I think there’s enormous potential for collaborative partnerships to be formed between local businesses and the art community.”

The mixed media works created specifically for the site by Karen Golland look perfectly at home amongst The Naked Bud’s eccentric collection of furniture and home wares. This isn’t surprising given the artist’s own intense interest in collecting second hand materials, everyday objects and discarded craft items. For some years now her art practice has combined these items to create new associations that are both familiar and strange. This reimagining of the domestic realm explores the connection between people, objects and memory.

“My works find their beginning in the everyday experience, so it seemed natural to move these pieces from the more formal art gallery environment to a place where the broader community could catch sight of them as they go about their daily lives,” Karen Golland said. “This series of works titled Quercus exist in that imaginative space where we can shift or transform one thing into another, so there’s a nice parallel with the idea of using non-traditional art spaces like The Naked Bud for temporary exhibitions.”

The series of mixed media works titled Quercus can be viewed in the front windows of The Naked Bud, 81 Keppel Street until 14 January 2014.