Beautiful Tensions: In conversation with Gray Street Workshop artists

Join Gray Street Workshop artists Jess Dare, Lisa Furno, Sue Lorraine and Catherine Truman together with author and original founding member Anne Brennan for a QVMAG exclusive in conversation event at the Art Gallery at Royal Park.

Anne Brennan will lead a lively discussion with the artists on the experience of working within a shared studio environment and the ongoing conversations that shaped the making of the works and the writing of the book.

The participants will offer insights into the value of a collective approach and the realities of sustaining an arts practice.

This event offers audiences a deeper engagement with Beautiful Tensions: Gray Street Workshop celebrates forty years and a rare opportunity to hear directly from the artists and contributors whose shared histories and practices underpin the exhibition.

In celebration of Gray Street Workshop’s 40th anniversary, JamFactory presents Beautiful Tensions, a major touring exhibition honouring the momentous legacy and talent of the workshop by showcasing new work by the four current partners: Jess Dare, Lisa Furno, Sue Lorraine and Catherine Truman.

Established in 1985, Gray Street Workshop is one of Australia’s longest running collectively run studios for artists working in the field of contemporary jewellery and object making. The uncompromising commitment of this group of artists to their work and to studio-based practice has enabled Gray Street Workshop to evolve into one of Australia’s most exciting and respected workshops.

Beautiful Tensions brings together new work by the four current partners and is the culmination of two years of work and research. Witty, playful and poignant in equal measure, each body of work is distinctive, yet share certain themes and formal concerns.

This timely exhibition articulates the group’s shared commitment to the value of making and the power of objects to transmit meaning. The way their shared themes are articulated so differently in the exhibition is a cogent expression of how the group works, in their own words, ‘separately together’.

The exhibition will be launched at JamFactory Adelaide before touring to 12 venues nationally across SA, VIC, TAS, NSW and QLD. It is accompanied by a 152-page hard-cover monograph, co-published by JamFactory and Wakefield Press, and written by author and Gray Street Workshop co-founder Anne Brennan.

Beautiful Tensions: Gray Street Workshop celebrates fory years

Art Gallery at Royal Park, 2 Wellington Steet, Launceston
30 May — 27 September 2026
Free entry | Open 10am to 4pm daily

Image: Beautiful Tensions: Gray Street Workshop celebrates forty years. Photo: Supplied.

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