Gabriele often works with steel. His approach is intuitive mainly concerned with essential form and movement. He works quickly, changing and adjusting the construction to achieve the desired result.
Maria uses delicate silk, lace, brocade. The work is slow, intricate, and layered. Is it art or is it wearable? Each piece is an explosion of emotion and provokes the viewer to reflect into their own life experience and question personal beliefs and values.
This is a unique opportunity to experience the synthesis within the contrast of Silk and Steel.
About Maria Mastro
The Mastro Couture Label started in Sydney in 1986, specialising in bridal and formal wear. After completing studies in Theatrical costume at East Sydney Tafe in 1995, I expanded my atelier to include freelance work, making period costumes for film, theatre and opera. At the Sydney Opera House, I worked with many international designers, including Katherine Martin and Baz Luhrmann on A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Other productions I worked on for Opera Australia are La Traviata, Nabucco and Lucia di Lammermoor, to name a few. I also worked on costume maintenance for many musicals, including Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables, and Crazy for You.
For the last 20 years, I have been creating a collection of period clothing which represents the changes in women’s fashion from 1000 to 1901: Medieval to late Victorian. My hope is that this collection will be an inspiration for all the community to appreciate how fashion has developed and how fashion is a mirror of the society in which we live.
In the last few years, a personal health issue led to an explosion of new work in an effort to heal myself, using textiles that I have amassed over decades: Italian silks, rich brocades, beaded lace, all coming together as a visual feast. Each piece has its own narrative. The titles are an impetus for the viewer to reflect into their own life experience and question personal beliefs and values.
Maria:
Imagine being able to wear the art on your walls. My latest textile art is an explosion of emotion and a tangible witness to the power of creative energy to heal and restore the mind and body. A recent illness motivated a creative burst in an effort to heal myself. All that pain, emotion and grief exploded outward producing a new form of textile art as a visual stream of consciousness. Our community needs exposure to art of great inspiration and beauty to persevere in these difficult times. The provocative titles of my new pieces are an impetus for the viewer to reflect into their own life experience and question personal beliefs and values. I hope that my work will be an inspiration for all the community to appreciate how fashion has changed over the centuries and how fashion has always been a mirror of the society we live in.
About Maria Mastro Senior
I would like to draw your attention to the lace in the glass cabinets which are the extraordinary work of my 80-year-old mother. Maria Mastro Senior.
Her story begins in war-torn southern Italy in a small fishing village near Bari on the Adriatic Coast. From the age of 9, she started making lace to sell to help feed her 10 siblings. At the age of 15 after she lost her father, she packed up her bobbins, patterns, and 1 suitcase, and was sent to Australia.
The next six decades were a blur of work, marriage, children, grandchildren church, and community. When dad died 5 years ago, she was suddenly alone so in my efforts to relieve her grief I took her to the lace museum in Sydney for a day of creative distraction. She was instantly drawn to the bobbin lace demonstration.
When she was invited to ‘have a go’ it was as though 60 years had melted away and her fingers knew exactly what to do. We rushed home and she finally unpacked her bobbins and patterns which had remained sealed in the same bag she carried from Italy. It took her 60 years to pick them up but she has not been able to put them down since.
The work is meticulous and time consuming with each piece taking about 4 weeks to complete. I stand in awe watching her twirl those bobbins and I am proud that her work can finally be shared and appreciated as such skills are fast becoming a lost art.
Links:
Images from the exhibition
This exhibition is supported by the Southern Downs Regional Council and the Queensland Government.
