DRUNKEN LUSTRE is a group exhibition of young and emerging artists from Sydney, curated by Anthony Springford and Jaime

Tsai, and hosted by Artsite Gallery from the 7th 22nd of September. DRUNKEN LUSTRE surveys 14 exceptional undergraduate or recent graduate artists from the four leading Sydney art institutions: The National Art School; the University of New South Wales, CoFA; the University of Sydney, SCA, and the University of Technology Sydney, (Photography and Situated Media). This is a unique opportunity to see some of the most vibrant and innovative artists at the beginning of their careers, many of whom are yet to exhibit in commercial galleries or public collections. Hamish Campbell (Independent) Benjamin Chadbond (UTS) Theresa Darmody (CoFA) Jenni Eleutheriades (NAS) Anne-Marie Jackson (NAS) Eloise Kirk (SCA) Gillian Lavery (CoFA) Lucy Le Masurier (SCA) Joanne Makas (NAS) Gabrielle Mason (NAS) Ramesh Nithiyendran (CoFA) Nadia Odlum (NAS) June Sartracom (NAS) Stephanie Tsai (SCA) Having lectured across many of these art institutions, Tsai (independent writer, curator and academic), and Springford (artist, writer and academic) have invited specific artists that they anticipate will seduce both local and international audiences, and be snapped up by public and private collections in the near future. The resulting group show covers a diverse range of media and approaches, including photography, painting, installation, ceramics and textiles. Drunken lustre suggests an altered state of perceptual experience, akin to the magpies swoon before shards of coloured glass, or the kaleidoscopic vertigo encountered in a vast gothic cathedral. This collection is luminous, playful, tactile and sensuous; it represents the most perceptive and sophisticated of Sydneys emerging artists. Nithiyendrans carnivalesque ceramics comically pit formal elegance against puerile transgression, while Odlums dazzling optical installations and Sartracoms austere, deductive canvases are a complex re-evaluation of Modernist abstraction. A lot of this work is quite sexy, but its no less insightful or witty for that, Springford says, As Oscar Wilde said of the Belle poque a similar age of excess and crisis we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. DRUNKEN LUSTRE Exhibition: September 7 - 22, 2013 Opening: 3 - 5pm Sunday, September 8 Preview: Saturday September 7 Artsite Gallery hours: 11am - 5pm Wednesday Sunday www.artsite.com.au | (02) 8095 9678 https://www.facebook.com/drunkenlustre2013