Exhibition opening at Broken Hill City Art Gallery on Friday 6 February 2026
Exhibition dates: 6 February - 26 April 2026
Broken Hill City Art Gallery is proud to present Beautiful Tensions: Gray Street Workshop celebrates forty years, a major touring exhibition from JamFactory celebrating the 40th anniversary of Gray Street Workshop - one of Australia's longest-running and most influential collectively run studios for contemporary jewellery and object making.
Opening on Friday 6 February 2026 at 6.00 pm, Beautiful Tensions showcases new work by the workshop's four current partners: Jess Dare, Lisa Furno, Sue Lorraine and Catherine Truman. The exhibition reflects four decades of collaborative practice while presenting four distinct yet connected bodies of work.
Founded in 1985 by Anne Brennan, Catherine Truman and Sue Lorraine, Gray Street Workshop has played a significant role in shaping South Australia's visual arts landscape. Over 40 years, the workshop has supported the professional and creative development of more than 100 artists nationally and internationally, many of whom have gone on to establish significant careers of their own. Its legacy is marked by a strong commitment to studio-based practice, mentorship and collaboration.
Beautiful Tensions brings together works that explore shared themes of environment, memory, mourning and the power of making. Witty, playful and poignant in equal measure, the exhibition demonstrates how a collaborative ethos can support individual voices, described by the artists themselves as working 'separately together'.
Each artist approaches these themes in distinctive ways. Catherine Truman reflects on human relationships with the natural world through sculptural forms that speak to environmental fragility. Lisa Furno responds to consumption and waste, creating masks from domestic detritus and documenting them through photographic performance. Jess Dare's meticulously crafted wreaths and floral tributes examine the iconography of mourning and commemoration, while Sue Lorraine's masks and objects made from recycled mulga souvenirs form an intimate meditation on family memory and inheritance.
Touring nationally to 12 venues across South Australia, Victoria, Tasmania, New South Wales, the ACT and Queensland, Beautiful Tensions is accompanied by a 152-page hard-cover monograph copublished by JamFactory and Wakefield Press, written by author and Gray Street Workshop co-founder Anne Brennan.
Beautiful Tensions: Gray Street Workshop celebrates forty years is a JamFactory touring exhibition supported by the Visions of Australia touring program, an Australian Government program aiming to improve access to cultural material for all Australians.
Opening Event
Date: Friday 6 February 2026
Time: 6.00 pm
Location: Broken Hill City Art Gallery, 404-408 Argent Street, Broken Hill
Cost: Free entry
Light refreshments will be served, with bar facilities available on the night. All are welcome.
Artist talk
Join us on Saturday 7 February 2026 at 11.00 am for a special artist talk with exhibition artists from Gray Street Workshop. This informal floor talk offers audiences the opportunity to hear directly from the artists about their collaborative practice, individual approaches to making, and the ideas that shape the works featured in Beautiful Tensions.
The artist talk is free and open to all, and no bookings are required.
