It’s official….Kate Ceberano loves to collaborate!!!
Just about the only thing Kate loves more than dreaming beautiful objects into existence, is bringing all her friends with her! With an unstoppable desire to create “a kitchen full of creatives”, Kate surrounds herself daily with a community of inspirational local creatives, all bonded by a mutual aspiration of creating aesthetic, honest and meaningful art pieces that last a lifetime. From artists to musicians, designers and seamstresses - Kate has many very exciting projects in the works. Stay tuned, folks!!!
KRISTIE ROWE
KIMONOS
With a similar sartorial sensibility, and a history of working creatively together as artist and muse, Kate’s collaboration with multidisciplinary visual artist, Kirstie Rowe extends over 10 years.
“When a garment is made from the inside outside, especially for YOUR body - you are enhanced by it’s structure! And performing in it is a heightened experience! In Kristie’s clothes I feel I am transformed into an Oscar, or some iconic statue. Far greater than I even see myself! It gives me the courage to perform in a more heightened space.”
Dreaming up inspiration for a big performance, Kate ventured into Kristie’s Melbourne boutique “House of Snowball”. Kristie was working on bespoke designs recently featured in Vogue UK when the two instantly bonded. Over many months, Kate began working with Kristie on her dream dress for the 2012 Adelaide Cabaret Festival (of which Kate was the Artistic Director).
Fast forward to 2023, Kate and Kristie have collaborated on designs for Kate’s upcoming ‘Hit By A Rock n Roll Stick” Kimono capsule. Merging Kate’s intricate hand-painted artworks into an erte-esque silhouette, which encompasses Kate’s legacy as both a visual and musical artist. Together with Kristie’s bespoke pattern design and fabric experience, the pair are deep into something truly special here.
“I sit and dream up how it might feel to wear garments that go straight from the boudoir to the stage. Garments that give every woman of any shape and size the chance to feel like rock star”.
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Kristie Rowe is a multidisciplinary artist with a background in visual art and fashion design.
Kristie’s work has been featured in various international publications, from Vogue UK and the cover of Vogue China, as well as being showcased in limited edition “Voice of a Century: 100 years of Vogue” book printed by Genesis in 2016 to celebrate British Vogue.
Kristie was recently nominated for an AACTA for Best Costume Design in a Film for ‘Pieces’ (alongside Catherine Martin for Elvis). Her current artistic practice is focused around creating innovative ways to activate sites and bring specific stories to life, specifically for live performance, film and interactive installations.
Kristie works with a range of art mediums to animate stories and characters which best suit the project concept. Kristie's art practice involves ongoing documentation of ideas through large gestural paintings, oil portraits and photography. She sees painting as a sort of diary entry inspired by her research and immediate tactility to the world around her, mainly reflecting nature forms through the subconscious, combining memory and the immediate response to the act of painting. Portraiture is also an important element to her painting in order to explore human experience and identity.
In recent years, Kristie has been collaborating with dancers, singers and writers to create sculptural costumes, props and visual set design for contemporary dance performances, original scripts for film and theatre as well as her own performance art concepts. Recent live projects have been collaborations with her performance artist husband, Paul Rowe, for Genrefonix Arts Collective activating sites and festivals under the direction of film and sound artist, Will Axten. Transformation is a key theme in her work leading to experiments with moving and hand activated mechanical parts as well as bringing the audience into the process of creation through live elemental performance and installation. Kristie attributes her unique perspective, to her 25 year career as an artist after completing a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Western Australia, in 1997, where she explored a variety of art making mediums, then moving to Sydney to study fashion design, then on to London where she gained valuable experience creating one-off pieces with antique textiles for exclusive ‘One Boutique’ as well as working in a textile print design studio. This culminated in the creation of her own International fashion brand, ‘House of Snowball’ which she created with her mother, Louise Coakley, opening a boutique on Coventry St in South Melbourne From 2010 - 2013. Kristie now works out of her Fremantle studio and is currently exhibiting a series of large gestural oil paintings while developing visual design and interactive ideas for future projects. See artwork on www.kristierowe.com Education Bachelor Fine Arts - University of Western Australia Diploma in Fashion Design - Whitehouse School of Design, Sydney.
Awards & Projects
Paintings/costumes/set/props recently featured in ‘Pieces’ film ; Winner of the WA ScreenCulture Awards 2022; Outstanding Production Design in a Film . Nominated for an AACTA Best Costume Design in a Film 2022 (alongside Catherine Martin for Elvis). Nominated for an AACTA Best Indie Film 2022. Interactive NASA Moonlanding set installation at ‘Signal Sound Lab’, ArtSource collaboration with Will Axten and Gaëtan Schurrer 2023. Art costume, props and set activation for Paul Rowe, for Genrefonix Arts Collective activating sites and festivals under the direction of film and sound artist, Will Axten. ‘Frankenstone’at the Roundhouse 2019, ‘Ghosts of Perth’ at Fringe Festival 2021 and ‘Walbrinny’ Sci- Fi Space Show at GinGin Gravity Discovery Centre 2018. Batavia Gallery, WA Shipwreck Museum ‘Lucretia’s Lament’ 2021 Live performance in the Batavia Gallery sculptural costume made with hand cut paper stenciling and mechanical silhouette puppetry features. PSAS ‘Mary Shelley’s Heart’ 2018 Live painting with WA Opera’s soprano, Caitlin Cassidy, in a sculptural canvas dress inspired by research around the Round House.
EMMA CEBERANO
LEGACY QUILTS
Back in 2021, over traditional Filipino lunch, a new collaboration was born! This time, between Kate and her stepmother Emma Ceberano. The two passionately discussed a mutual love of textiles and design.
For the past 20 years, with the goal has been to provide an income stream for the indigenous women involved in the quilt making process in the Philippines' northern highland districts - Emma Ceberano has run “Emmalani Hawaiian Quilts”. Kate’s inexhaustible creative mind was instantly set free to begin dreaming up new designs and carefully picking out all the colours of her wish-list, while Emma engaged her team of workers in the Philippines on the project.
“My family and I went to Hawaii when I was 8 years old. Until then I hadn’t really felt that I had any connection to my heritage on my Hawaiian/Filipino side - suddenly a whole world was open to me!! I walked into the lobby of the very famous Royal Hawaiian Hotel and hanging on the wall was a quilt behind a glass case…. Literally, I stood in front of it for the longest time - staring at how it was made, the colours, the motifs… I thought about the women, and their hands on it…each stitch a story!!!! I feel very privileged that I can put my design into such an ancient tradition, and feel my place in amongst my people, and the story of where I’ve come from! Every time I return to Hawaii, I make a pilgrimage to that place, and to that piece of work.”
Countless hours over many months of intricate work have contributed to making these art pieces simply breathtaking and truly one-of-a-kind. Both in the Philippines by master quilters, and then by Kate herself, who has lovingly hand-stitched personlized stories all around the borders. Each quilt is Super King size, and comes with a certificate of authenticity.
THOMAS WOODMAN POVEY
Thomas Woodman-Povey is an Australian stained glass artist currently residing and working in the UK. His practice is predominately focused on the ancient craft of lead-lighting and glass painting. Using lead, glass ,colour and light he produces visually beautiful work in subjects that provoke a socially conscious reaction.
In amongst the trials of the painfully long COVID lockdowns, new connections and friendships blossomed. One of which, the special bond between Kate Ceberano and UK based stained glass artist, Thomas Woodman Povey. Entrenched in so many social and physical restrictions, Kate found herself using social media platforms as a prime way to discover and connect with like-minded creatives - who were equally driving themselves mad during the pandemic! Thomas happened to be one of the very first patrons to commission a painted guitar from Kate. The two would regularly exchange lengthy heartfelt messages about art, life, purpose and creativity, until they naturally began work on their first collaboration together.
“How and why Kate and I found each other I cannot explain. Maybe it was one of life’s serendipitous blessings whereby two creatives found themselves in the right place at the right time. Our artistic languages intermingled as well as our sense of visual aesthetic. I wasn’t looking for a collaborator at the time but organically we have found a wonderful and creative bond. It is my joy to work with Kate to retell her intricate works in the ancient medium of stained glass. The first window was a tester and in the second something magical happened. The best is still yet to come.” - Thomas Woodman-Povey.
Thomas is a Freeman of The Worshipful Company of Glaziers and Painters of Glass and in 2022 was presented with the Freedom of the City of London.
KASHEL POROZNY //
ZEPHYRSON THREADS
“Once I got my quilts back to Australia, I started to locate artists online that were discovering embroidery from a cultural perspective and bringing it into a contemporary conversation. Maria Grazia Chiuri became my new obsession! She was traveling to parts of India, Italy and Mexico, bringing together tribes of women from old to young and exploring the history of their textiles and giving a contemporary context to how to make slow fashion, sustainable fashion and an entire army of new textile workers. I asked myself the question… “who can I do this with locally??? Who is my tribe??” I went online and found Kashel and I dm’d her directly… “We gotta work together!” In exploring how to get work done off shore in India, I received two sample Linen panels of my art and I invited her to collaborate with me to make wall hangings… like wall jewellery! That’s my jam!!!!!!!”
Kashel Porozny is trained in traditional fashion design, illustration and clothing production, but began working mostly with the traditional technique of freehand “Irish” embroidery when she realised the gap within the marketplace for handmade and one-of-a-kind embroidered fabrics and developed a love for creating works of textile art with this technique. Combining a love for modern fashion and streetwear with an appreciation for traditional and fine art principles, Kashel is constantly taking inspiration from the world around her to create beautiful and enduring pieces of wearable art.