elizabeth shaw   jewellery objects
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    • The Miniature Museum 2009
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The Miniature Museum 

The Miniature Museum is a collaborative exhibition by Elizabeth Shaw and Nick Ashby. The works presented showcase both their individual practices and the work they have done together, including paintings and small scale sculptures investigating a diverse range of ideas from representing the self to repairing fragments of the body.

As Michael Hawker states in his exhibition essay "Ashby and Shaw have condensed their universe into a ‘Miniature Museum’ that is its own intelligible microscopic world. Their museum moves us out of the present to an interior space that finds its inspiration in personal and collective history and the subconscious workings of memory".
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Exhibited first in Melbourne at Blindside Gallery in June 2009 and then later in the same year at Metro Arts Brisbane. In her review in the Sunday Age (June 21, 2009) Penny Modra describes the exhibition  as a cabinet of curiosities and that "breezing in and out of this show is not an option : you have to really look or you won't see anything at all".  As one would expect, in a Miniature Museum the works are small.
Picture
Elizabeth Shaw. New Hand, found broken ceramic, reused and recycled sterling silver. Image: Michelle Bowden.
New Hand was the first in the series of works that became my contribution to The Miniature Museum exhibition. The piece developed in response to a small section of a porcelain figurine found while digging a garden bed. No other parts of the body were found. When washed the glazed surface looked almost as good as new. On its own the arm felt unresolved, so  I modelled it a new hand.

The withered branches of mock oranges removed to make new gardens became the limbs for a series of works that followed New Hand.  Cut in to smaller sections, the branches resembled human limbs, so instead of being added to the compost pile, the small limbs were dried while I worked out what to do with them.
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PictureElizabeth Shaw. Foot Calliper (underfoot), reused and recycled sterling silver, mock orange timber. Image: Michelle Bowden.

Picture
Elizabeth Shaw. Arm Calliper (out stretched, palm up), reused and recycled sterling silver, mock orange timber. Image: Michelle Bowden.
Picture
Miniature Museum at Blindside. Elizabeth Shaw and Nick Ashby.
Picture
Miniature Museum at Blindside. Elizabeth Shaw and Nick Ashby.
 Michael Hawker wrote the catalogue essay. "John Mack states in The Art of Small Things (2007) that the museum is engaged in the ‘activity of creating intelligible, microscopic worlds from the universe they seek to condense’.(1) Nick Ashby and Elizabeth Shaw have condensed their universe into a ‘Miniature Museum’ that is its own intelligible microscopic world. Their museum moves us out of the present to an interior space that finds its inspiration in personal and collective history and the subconscious workings of memory" (Hawker, M, 2009, p1.)
the_miniature_museum_essay.pdf
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miniaturemuseumcatalogue.pdf
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  • Home
  • jewellery and objects
    • Diego, Don Tom and Ann 2023
    • Charred Koala - hanging on 2022
    • Radical Localism 2022
    • SHAW & SHAW 2021
    • Precious Places 2020
    • Pincer Grip 2019
    • Hand-Saw-Horse 2019
    • Urban Origins 2019
    • Rotary Wheel Rings 2018
    • Debra Porch and Friends 2018
    • Recycled Narratives 2018
    • Nail Heads 2017 - 2018
    • Mortar Heads 2017
    • Rescued Pets 2017
    • Visions Exhibition 2017
    • Rings for Mary Shelley 2016
    • Yang 杨 + Shaw 肖 2015-2016
    • The Contemporary Jewelry Exchange 2015-2016
    • Sleight of Hand 2015
    • Why Jewellery? 2015
    • Greensmith 2014+2016
    • Icons 2014
    • Tool 2011 & 2012
    • Inundation 2011
    • Evidence 2010
    • The Miniature Museum 2009
  • studio
  • bio
  • contact
  • blog