Collecting: a coffee table book as glorious a keepsake as the artworks presented within
There are some coffee table books that look as beautiful – simply as decor in your living room – as the pages within those books. Such is the case with Collecting: Living with Art by Kym Elphinstone.
This gorgeous emerald green-bound tome takes an intimate look into the homes of 26 Australian art collectors, ranging from emerging talents to established artists and personalities.
The book serves as a visual feast and thoughtful exploration of how art can transform living spaces into personal sanctuaries of self-expression. And not just visual art but multimedia, sculpture and/or installation.
Each art collector’s home setting is presented through striking full-page or double-page colour photographs by key lensman Dave Wheeler, to ultimately create a work of art in itself.
Writer/curator Elphinstone emphasises that art should be collected for the joy it brings to one’s life, rather than as an investment – a philosophy that underscores a more ‘personal’ connection between collectors and their acquisitions.
I myself have a few Ben Frosts peppered around the home, a Stormie Mills humbly framed, and a pop star by Australian photographer Gary Heery in this room and that. In sum, these works reveal the pop-sensitive aspect to my personality but, more importantly, they remind me of certain joyful or profound moments in my life. Seeing the works for the first time, connecting with the artist’s message, just having to have the artwork (and more than on a whim), and holding onto it as a reminder of the beauty of art and how it continues to resonate with its audience amid a world gone fast-consumerist crazy.
Collecting: Living with Art by Kym Elphinstone, published by Thames & Hudson, RRP $79.99.
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