“Saddle your wild lama, gather your spiritual animals and go explore. I dare you”
Luka, Surfing Sloth

As part of Finders Keepers exploring new ways for our community to interact with artists work, ‘team decor’ aka Monique and Brooke selected a group of Finders Keepers stallholders to bring to life the elements that make us uniquely Finders Keepers.

With a blank canvas and their imaginations to guide them, each artist created a series of ‘gram-worthy’ art forms inspired by our keywords, to share with our creative community across all three cities on the Finders Keepers Spring/ Summer East Coast Tour. Those words were…

Discover + explore + connect + make

Read on for each collaborator’s take on what inspired their work + some of our favourite photos from throughout the season with a few candid interactions from you too, I mean who doesn’t want to stick their head in a hole this colourful?!

A huge thank you & shout-out to the seven talented stallholders who collaborated with us so brilliantly on this project; Eggpicnic, Laura Blythman, Saltys, Surfing Sloth, Tegan Iversen, Shuh. and Trade the Mark. We heart your style!

Discover

Eggpicnic
Australia is home to around 800 bird species, almost half of which are endemic – that is, they are found nowhere else in the world. They are beautiful and odd, resourceful and innovative. They are also curious, emotional, smart and adaptable. Princess Parrot is an invitation to discover a new perspective to the brilliant colours and textures that are unique to Australia’s birds. The large scale of the artwork switches the relationship we have with birds. Normally we are the giants however here it’s the opposite. It is an opportunity to look at the world through the eyes, with the mind, of a wild animal and to remove ourselves completely, even for a short moment, from this human perspective.

Explore

TRADE the MARK
The word EXPLORE resonated with me in so many ways for this piece. I’ve always played with the concept of direction in my work, looking at our own pathways in particular. I’m curious as to why we follow some paths throughout our lives and not others. My mark making practice is a type of meditation on this subject and I use bold, linear marks to illustrate and tell a story.

Tegan Iversen
My work is often inspired by my own everyday life & things that I like such as food, animals, toys & colour. In doing this I love the idea that my work can be relatable & accessible to others. The concept of connect to me is how people relate & interact with each other. Our similarities & differences, like taste in certain colours (can you guess my favourite?) & animals (it’s pretty obvious that I’m a cat person). I hope that my work encourages conversations between people & they can also “explore” the piece with one another finding objects & items that they like or perhaps even find a little funny.

Shuh.
The idea behind the artwork is all about fun and quirky creatures/ideas/characters that inhabit my imagination. I have combined all four words into this artwork – Discover, Explore, Connect and Make. It was difficult to separate each, as they are vital to how I create.

I began the artwork with a plain sketch. To me is about discovering what I can do, and exploring the possibilities of the empty canvas. The figures, faces and colours are how I create a connection with the audience.

I hope you find joy from the artwork as much as I enjoyed painting it.

 

Surfing Sloth
Explore, that ultimately leads to discovery, discovery leads to connection and only then ideas could be born and made into something tangible.

Saddle your wild lama, gather your spiritual animals and go explore. I dare you

 

Connect

Saltys
One rainy afternoon at the age 11 a b&w film came on the tv, The Endless Summer. It was the most amazing thing I had ever seen. How I wanted to be lugging heavy surfboards around the world discovering incredible point breaks, meeting folks and exploring foreign lands and cultures, while avoiding the cold bleakness of winter. This inspired many trips in my 20’s along the East coast countless times, in cars, trains and by thumb. I spent hours collecting river and creek names, accumulating the best truck stocks, Milk Bars and campgrounds along the coast. Delicate Nobbies, Bald Head, Hat Head, Crowdy Head, Solitary, Sandon and Spookies. All the delicious back roads, naive hand painted signs, food stalls, service stations full of supplies, ice and fresh mullet. It’s was the joy of self discovery as much as physical exploration. The discoveries continue, there is satisfaction in the narrowing of the search by a greater understanding of self and the refinement of taste.

Make

Laura Blythman
Imagine being shrunk down to a tiny person and being able to explore and play in a HUGE magical garden filled with the biggest, sweet smelling blooms made up of all the colours you can possibly imagine. What a dream!

~

Thank you to all the lovers who got in front and behind our 2018 artist installations! We’re always looking for new ways to support our stallholders and share their work with you all, and look forward to more fun in 2019!