The West Pulse exhibition: Young designers take over the AGWA Design Store for Les Enfants Terrible

Colin Walker admits he’s sweating, just a little. As the time came this week to hand over the Art Gallery of Western Australia to an influx of young creatives, Walker, its director, was buzzing with a certain “nervous energy”. The four-month take-over will run until August 20 as part of a “youthquake”, where AGWA will champion young creatives across art forms, extending the impact of highly anticipated The West Australian Pulse exhibition, which features 61 works by Year 12 visual art students. “For so many years we’ve just done the exhibition and that’s it. But to give, in essence, the whole gallery over is so exciting. It could be a disaster or it could be amazing,” says Walker. “I think that’s always the best thing; where you’re not quite sure.” Part of the program is Les Enfants Terrible — a transformation of AGWA’s Design Store into a haven for emerging artists, including fashion designers, sculptors, ceramicists and furniture makers looking to forge a career, allowing them to showcase and merchandise their wares to visitor and industry figures. “The gallery is not just about visual arts, it’s never really been just about visual arts,” Walker says. “But what better way to try to explain that to the wider world and to kids who may want to create in the arts, than to just throw it all open and show just what the possibilities are?” STM caught up with three of the chosen emerging artists whose work will be displayed at Les Enfants Terrible, in which all have a passionate mission, a unique perspective of the world and remarkable talent. Conor Macgrath, 28, Artist Conor Macgrath is on a mission to explore one of the most pervasive epidemics the modern world has ever seen — mental illness. This is no easy feat for a fresh art school graduate, but every artist has a mission, and this is his. Investigating his personal struggles with social anxiety is what propelled Macgrath into using his creativity to explore the realm of mental adversities. During his final year studying visual arts at North Metropolitan TAFE, he created multimedia artworks to encourage conversation about the personal coping mechanisms and rituals people undertake to offset negative forces in their lives. “It was almost like this year-long therapy session,” Macgrath tells STM. Macgrath’s final showstopping artwork, his piece de resistance, is a striking life-sized figure titled After You — nicknamed “Jengaman”. Made up of 874 plantation pine blocks, stacked in 92 layers — none of the pieces are glued together — he describes it as exploring feelings of erosion and eventual collapse in both physical and mental forms. “(It explores) the process of people taking equal parts away from someone, and that interaction is OK (because) that person is still together once one block has been taken out,” he reveals. “But eventually someone’s going to take the piece out that breaks the camel’s back.” Not attaching the hundreds of pieces to each other was an intentional hurdle Macgrath chose to tackle because it is important for the construction of his fragile artwork to accurately portray his concept of mental destruction — even if he has to reassemble the sculpture for every exhibition. “We’re all going through a lot of the same things that your neighbour or the person who will pass on the street is going through. I’m trying to open up that really hard conversation, especially in men, that they don’t want to talk about,” he explains. “Artworks make people feel less alone and isolated with those (hard) feelings.” The heavy concepts behind Macgrath’s artistic practice mean it is vital the viewer can relate — hence the artwork’s name and proportions. The Perth-based creative says it’s vital that the piece is at ground level, so anyone can walk up to it and see themselves. “It’s not on this great big plinth. It’s not a statue or a monument. It’s a mirror for the people in the gallery to relate to as much as possible,” Macgrath says. “The viewer is what brings all the meaning to (an) artwork. You can’t be wrong about what you feel.” Last year the Australian Bureau of Statistics conducted a national study of Mental Health and Wellbeing and found more than two in five Australians aged 16-85 years (43.7% or 8.6 million people) had experienced a mental disorder at some time in their life. “The pressure seems to be only mounting for mental health,” says Macgrath. “(Making social and political statements) is a large, important role that art, especially contemporary art has; to push the buttons, ask questions,” he says. “We’re in a world where people are so scared to say something wrong or do something wrong in the way of getting cancelled.” Tuong Vi Le, 22, Fashion Designer If Tuong Vi Le stayed in her home country of Vietnam, she would be working away as a lawyer, putting in 12-hour days in the the office as part of the non-stop corporate grind. Instead, she moved to Perth and is living the dream she never thought possible. While the fashion designer has had a challenging journey facing cultural pressures throughout her life, those hardships got her where she is today — and she wouldn’t change a thing. “In Asian culture, if you’re good at math, people call you smart. But when you’re able to draw, people don’t call that talent,” she tells STM. When Le relocated to Perth in 2017, she had no idea of the imminent career pivot that would change her life forever. “I came here to study nursing . . . I never thought I was going to study fashion design, even though that is my dream,” she says. But after pursuing nursing for two years, something wasn’t right. Le knew, in her gut, that it was now or never to chase the career she had spent her entire childhood dreaming about. She enrolled in fashion design at South Metropolitan TAFE and never looked back. “Before I felt like a bird in a cage but now I can fly and feel free doing what I love,” she says. The fashion prodigy admits that she never received her parents’ support to be a fashion designer — a heartbreaking position for any child to be in. But every cloud has a silver lining. Le turned her turmoil into triumph and created a spectacular graduate collection inspired by the very upbringing that she felt clipped her wings for so long. Under her brand ‘Rong’ which translates to dragon — a symbol of power, change, spirituality, prosperity and fortune in Vietnamese culture, she curated a spectacular capsule collection named Dragon Spirit. Le, born during the year of the dragon, found inspiration everywhere: from the texture of the bowl of rice she had for dinner every night to the artwork of many temples. “(The dragon symbol) is following me somehow,” she says. “I think it’s really important for people to hear different voices from around the world. Some think you have to travel to see (diverse perspectives) but no, everything is right here.” Working in the arts sector often comes with money worries and as the cost of living spirals, many emerging designers are finding it even more difficult to be financially secure. “I think it’s extremely hard for us (and) we have to do what we love on the side – earning money from our second job and paying for the job we love to do. You can easily find a job in a restaurant, but it’s not as easy to find a job in the creative industries,” Le says. “(But) I’m going to die for what I love, even though I cannot get money out of it.” Le is hopeful that her fellow emerging creatives can follow their dreams, just as she bravely did. “The really big message I want to tell people is be true to themselves,” she says. “Follow their passion. Don’t worry about if something right or wrong, just do it. Don’t care about the result.” Luke Seth, 28, Furniture Designer Humans have always longed for comfort — whether a warm dressing gown in winter, comfort food on a rainy day or the feeling of slipping into freshly washed linen bed sheets. Furniture designer Luke Seth of brand concrete jelly explored this notion during his final year at North Metropolitan TAFE, when he discovered the reason he has always been drawn to rounded, curvilinear structures. “We spend so much time in (interior spaces) and they have the power to affect our mood,” Seth tells STM. “On a scientific level, furniture and objects that have soft and rounded forms give us comfort and elicit a positive emotional response in us, similar to when we see something cute like a baby animal. It comes down to anatomy and our biological nature to nurture what seems childlike. “I read a quote recently that said ‘art provokes questions, whereas design seeks to answer them’ and I thought that was really interesting.” This has been a common thread through his work thus far and to take it to the next level, Seth gives his pieces human names, such as Albie and Lola, pictured. In recent years, there has been a rise in interest for eclectic homewares largely driven by social media. TikTok has made interior design more accessible and diverse for its eye-watering one billion active users a month, but Seth says it can be a double-edged sword for emerging creatives. “There’s so much content out there, I feel like it’s hard to find a lane, find an audience (and) stick out,” he says. Standing out from the crowd isn’t the only challenge — the cost of living crisis and the impact of the pandemic and economic downturn has flowed into supply problems, especially for an artist in one of the most remote cities in the world. “Relating to my field, I would say definitely the rise in manufacturing costs (has been a challenge),” Seth admits. “Perth is already isolated but I feel lately, with inflation, it’s only gotten worse.” For one of Seth’s recent projects, he set out to make a chair with legs made of tubular steel. However the quote he received amounted to thousands of dollars — certainly not within the budget of an up-and-coming artist. But like many creative minds, Seth turned this burden into an opportunity for innovation. “(It) pushes you to think outside of the box: to come up with different processes or ways around it, which can be part of the fun,” he says. “Growing up (my family) didn’t have the money to have any cool furniture, so when I started going down the route of looking at designers and pieces of art that were also usable, like chairs and tables, I found it very fascinating. My favourite thing is when the lines are blurred, and you can have functional pieces that also double as art objects.” The West Australian Pulse is on at AGWA now until August 20.

The West Pulse exhibition: Young designers take over the AGWA Design Store for Les Enfants Terrible

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