INVURT

Along with all the street art and graffiti that we love to endlessly cover, there are then those artists who don’t fit the usual mold, that we love just as much.

Artists such as Stephen Ives, with his incredibly detailed customised toys come sculptures – made from the mutated and bonded parts of the discarded, unwanted, new, old and found playthings, are in a popular position these days – their works able to easily traverse genres. More so, however, artists such as he and their creations are often able to subliminally touch upon our inner psyches – to which everyone, no matter the type of art, or even their degree of love for art, can easily identify and respond to with a myriad of emotions. Who can not see, for example, an image of Winnie the Pooh, all decked out in religious attire, and not wonder at the symbology contained within such a visage?

Stephen Ives does new things,  and consistently allows his work to follow a modernistic, urban influenced bent, continuously breathing a splurge of transformed consumeristic creativity into the blood stream of this thing we call art.

Its for all those reasons, and more, that Invurt approached Stephen on the eve of his latest show at No Vacancy – TOY, to get the low down on his work and to get an  insight into the ideas and themes he works within when putting together his creations – and did we mention that his sculptures are just really cool? So, read on, and enjoy rummaging around in Stephens Ives unequivocally metamorphosised toybox  …

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As far as collectives go, the crew at We Make Stuff Good have all the talent required in order to make their mark upon the Burn-city art frontier. Numbering over thirty individuals locally, nationally and internationally, many involved also crosshatch their membership with other luminous entities such as Sketch City, Melbourne Tours and Dont Ban The Can, to name a few.  Given this composition of deviceful minds, from all walks of the creative path, the crew at WMSG are at the top of the game, and contribute more than their fair share of passion to the cities flourishing scene.

Drawing upon that talent and energy, five of the women involved with WMSG have embarked upon a mission to promote both their own creative outputs, as well as WMSG as a whole, in a celebration of the strength of their female members. From amongst that contingent, Ania Stuff, Cammy Stuff, Krystal Stuff, Rachee Stuff and Verona stuff are all poised to unleash their work on the public, with a much anticipated tie in with the launch of the WMSG store as well as a tie-in event presented by Sketch City the following week.

Invurt recently had the opportunity to catch up WMSG’s Cammy Stuff, Krystal Stuff and Rachee Stuff to talk about art, their upcoming exhibition, and all things made good and proper.

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