Mirage—ARTCLUB’s Living Desert
Curated by ARTCLUB founder Claudia Lowe, and featuring Studio Lauren Flora, Emily Handlin and Tom Butterworth, Mirage is a dreamscape of native blooms, reflective planes and carved stone—art you feel as much as you see.
Words HANDE RENSHAW
‘I hope ARTCLUB sparks conversations about the value of cross-pollination, how collaboration can create something larger than the sum of its parts, and how art can reshape the way we experience space together,’ says ARTCLUB founder, Claudia Lowe. Photo: Tara D’cruz-Noble
Now in its fourth year, ARTCLUB champions inclusive, artist-led curation—bringing together experimental practices and unexpected collaborations across Sydney’s creative scene. Photo: Tara D’cruz-Noble
Studio Lauren Flora’s site-responsive florals weave native flora, raw elements, and seasonal produce into immersive installations that transform Mirage into a living desert oasis.
Vessels by Tom Butterworth. 05 Side Table by George Davies from HAKE House. Photo: courtesy of Hake House.
Emily Handlin work conjures desert landscapes, where memory and mirage converge. Through reflective surfaces and scorched tones, she explores the tension between illusion and perception.
“With Mirage, there is an extra challenge that excites me—all the works meet across different levels and dimensions: Tom’s practice rises from the ground up, Lauren suspends her pieces throughout the space, and Emily’s paintings hang high on the walls.”
‘Although each artist has responded to the brief thematically in their own way, they are already linked through the materiality of their works.’ Pictured: Emily Handlin.
‘ARTCLUB has always been about experimentation and accessibility. From our workshops to our exhibitions, the aim is to create platforms where artists can push beyond traditional forms while audiences feel invited to participate rather than observe from a distance.’ Photo: Tara D’cruz-Noble
Mirage transforms Art Department Studio in Woolloomooloo into a sensorial dreamscape—an imagined desert where heat shimmers, textures shift, and the arid turns unexpectedly lush.
Curated by ARTCLUB founder Claudia Lowe, the exhibition treats the mirage as both place and psychology: perception, longing and illusion rendered as environment. It’s a show to be wandered rather than merely viewed; boundaries soften, and the experience shifts with every step.
Rooted in a sweeping floor installation by Studio Lauren Flora, the gallery becomes a living landscape. Native flora, raw elements and seasonal produce thread through the space, their forms evolving across the week as scent, light and time alter the atmosphere. Above and around, Emily Handlin’s reflective and translucent works, painted on perspex and glass—introduce transparency, shadow and distortion. Some pieces are suspended, inviting visitors to literally move through the paintings. Anchoring the dreamscape, Tom Butterworth’s sculptures are carved from reclaimed Hawkesbury sandstone: relic‑like forms that hold the room’s weight and history. Two sit on brass wheels and may be repositioned, underscoring the exhibition’s restlessness.
‘Curation for me is about world‑building,’ Claudia shares. ‘I don’t want people to passively view; I want them to feel a shift in their body, their perspective, their mood.’ That sensibility meets the site’s cathedral‑like proportions—soaring ceilings and barn doors, dramatic yet grounding—allowing nature and structure, movement and stillness, translucency and solidity to play against one another. With only three artists, the dialogue is precise. Tom’s chiselled ridges rhyme with Emily’s desert topographies; his vessel‑like forms could cradle Lauren’s arrangements. Lauren’s Australian natives and sand carry a desert cadence that speaks to Emily’s painted horizons. Across ground, air and wall, their practices weave into a single sculptural field.
This fluidity reflects ARTCLUB’s broader ethos of inclusive, artist‑led curation. Programming extends the invitation beyond opening night: a Sip & Stem workshop pairs cocktails with floral arranging, and the closing gesture invites visitors to return and hand‑select florals from the installation to take home.
In collapsing boundaries between art and nature, object and environment, Mirage treats the exhibition as choreography. An experience that demands slowing down, looking again, and recalibrating what you think you’re viewing.
‘Mirage is about collapsing boundaries, giving artists space to experiment and creating an environment where disciplines can overlap in unexpected ways. I hope it sparks conversations about the value of cross-pollination, how collaboration can create something larger than the sum of its parts, and how art can reshape the way we experience space together,’ adds Claudia.
MIRAGE
Art Department Studio, 13 Forbes St, Woolloomooloo
3–9th September
@artclubatourhouse
