Creative cross-pollination at a blown up scale: Alpha60 x Brendan Huntley

The collaborative exhibition Sense of Direction, sees artist Brendan Huntley join forces with Melbourne fashion label Alpha60 siblings Alex and Georgie Cleary to create an immersive exhibition with a showstopping centrepiece featuring a 32-metre carpet. The custom-made rug will flow from room to room as it traverses both floors of Heide Modern.

From the initial conversation about a collaborative rug back in 2019, the idea for the project grew and grew. “Our motto is ‘keep your feet on the ground and head in the clouds’,” says Georgie Cleary.

The synergy and excitement between the three enabled the concept to evolve and the singular rug morphed into an ambitious immersive installation. 

“The idea of creating something that will be shown in Heide Modern, with the house’s extraordinary history, inspired us to exaggerate the scale of a domestic item, to reflect how the space blurs the lines between house and museum,” says Huntley.

The rug features an array of bright motifs including faces, celestial beings, clocks, butterflies and eyes seen in Huntley’s work. Speaking to the temporary nature of personal transformation; they posit a landscape describing the random evolution of patterns and the fleeting nature of the euphoric. 

Having met Huntley through his band Eddy Current Suppression Ring, Alex and Georgie attended the artist’s early exhibitions at Hell Gallery in Richmond. There they purchased a painting depicting a pair of upside-down wine glasses with faces, which remains in Georgie’s bedroom and forms the basis of their ongoing collection of the artist’s work.

“Our journey started with a friendship, became a desire to work together, sparked an idea, which has culminated in an exhibition,” says Georgie Cleary.

Heide
heide.com.au

Photography courtesy Alpha60