Craft / With Moth, Sue Peachey. At Craft + Design Canberra, until May 31. Reviewed by MEREDITH HINCHLIFFE.

Sue Peachey was the winner of the ACT Historic Places Art Prize – Craft + Design Award of 2023. The presentation of this solo show was part of her award.

Peachey researched the historic house of Lanyon – its outbuildings, the homestead, and the contents. She pairs native moths species from the Canberra region with functional objects from the homestead, including watering cans, milk jugs, and champagne bottles.

Several theoretical paths are embedded in this exhibition, and most can be summed up in the notion of “colonialism”, although climate change is a theme that features strongly throughout the show, through the incorporation of moths on each object.

The winning object in the 2023 Award was an embroidered linen handkerchief, created in pure white porcelain, with a moth sitting on it. Several more handkerchiefs with moths are on exhibit. She is also exhibiting handbuilt earthenware or porcelain: hand saws, workmen’s mugs and spanners. Peachey has decorated these fairly mundane objects with decals – small pastel flowers, farm machinery and ducks. For me, the decals are overdone – as though the artist didn’t know where to stop.

Each object has a moth sitting – resting? – on it, or the larvae of a moth. The champagne bottles – also in porcelain – have porcelain corks with moths resting on them. I found these the most successful as the decals seem to relate to the object more directly. In addition to the other surface decoration, Peachey has included kintsugi repairs in some of the objects. Some viewers may not be aware that this is a Japanese art form where breaks in pottery are repaired with lacquer and gold lustre – highlighting them. In combination with the decals, these seem to be unnecessary.

This exhibition brings attention to the objects from Lanyon, but as is often the case, less is more and I think it would have benefited from some judicial “pruning”.