Dandenong Ranges Open studios 

Dandenong ranges Open studios was held by Burrinja gallery to provide local artists a great opportunity to promote their art practices and to sell their artworks. This year, total of 33 artists opened their studios and let visitors chat with them and have a look of their recent works.
 Yesterday I have visited Jessie Yvette Journoud-Ryan’s studio in Upwey. Jessie is a French-Australian artist currently working on sculptural mosaics and collage works. Her mosaics are mainly created of recycled crockery donated from people in the local community. She creates both flat mosaics and three dimensional mosaics. What I love about her artworks is that her works bring out not only the beauty in the visual aspect of raw materials, but also the historical and the cultural elements of individual crockery pieces, as one united composition. As I see her works I wonder what each part was representing before it was cracked, and think why it was incorporated in that work. You can tell a huge amount of efforts and thoughtful consideration on the selection of crockery elements and the relationship between them in the work.

When I visited, I found out that her house and studio was full of mosaic art. The entrance and several walls were covered by artworks, both mosaics and collage works. I loved how her art was part of her everyday life, not just for commercial purposes or to exhibit in galleries.

Open Studios is a great event to know artists in the community and get inspired by their distinctive styles and works. I love living in this area because the community is keen to promote visual arts and so many people are open to share their art practices with others. The connection between artists in Dandenong Ranges is phenomenal.