Ground Work

Bo Wong and Rose Megirian’s second collaboration for our journal, Ground Work , provides insight into the depth and breadth of practice of a select group of multi-disciplinary Western Australian artists who have paired their creative process with commercial capacity.

There’s a proposition (not a new one) that crops up on social media every year or so; who you buy an artist’s work you you also buy the artist space and time (literally and metaphorically) to explore, experiment, test, push boundaries and ideate.

As Weintraub would have it, ‘production and consumption comprise complementary aspects of art’s cultural course’1. A purchase provides agency and this agency allows an artist to act and work independently; to contribute to a cultural landscape, shift ideas and create discussion.

Economic stability allows an artist to thrive as a citizen and to participate in political, social and cultural debate.

As an audience, and as members of a democratic and diverse society, we have a vested interest in supporting artists who observe, critique and provide us with an alternative view of ourselves.

We showcase here a selection of artists we view as straddling the creative and the commercial. Simultaneously, they challenge our paradoxically limited ideas about whether something should or shouldn’t be considered art. Unique, hand-crafted objects are made by professional artists. When these objects have a function, they are sometimes described as design or decorative or craft. The necessity to designate oneself can be limiting and impacts on an artist’s agency.

Let’s celebrate the artists who broaden the definitions of their creative practice. Let’s offer them an opportunity to explore a diversity of mediums AND make a decent living. Let’s remove the obstacles to their agency for expression.

1 Weintraub, L. 2003. Making Contemporary Art: How Modern Artists Think and Work.