RITA 4, Décor Drive | Sutton Projects | 13 October – 4 November 2023
Jeremy Eaton, John Meade, Reg Preston, Meredith Turnbull, curated by Jeremy Eaton and Andrew Atchison
RITA 4: Décor Drive comprises an eroticised tableau of sculptural prototypes by John Meade, lustrous ceramics by potter Reg Preston, soft-spatial furnishings by Jeremy Eaton, and collage and display works by Meredith Turnbull. Instigated by the suggestive rims of Preston’s vessels and their affinity with Meade’s 3D-printed models for the series Objects to live by, and extended through the interior décor-oriented research works of Eaton and Turnbull, RITA 4: Décor Drive frames the impulse that leads these artists to create, collect, research and display objects as latently erogenous.
The material, historic and psychosexually tiered setting integrates Preston and Meade’s works amongst tables and wallpaper by Turnbull developed over the last decade as part of a project that considers objects as both co-workers and culture made manifest, interposed with a curtain by Eaton that forensically reconstructs a now obscure fabric designed by Australian artist James Gleeson in the 1940s.
The range of objects and furnishings in the exhibition find connections across the domestic space, commodity culture, design rigour and the constructed tension between art and craft, scaffolding RITA’s inaugural project within a taut, libidinal mesh.
RITA is a four–part collaborative curatorial project by Andrew Atchison and Jeremy Eaton that is inspired by the approach to practice of American artist Rita Mcbride, who has generously designed the RITA logo.
