Caz Guiney’s exhibition Precious Nothing opened at Craft Victoria last Wednesday. It’s a virtuosic display of inconsequentiality. The installation in Gallery 3 consists of a series of alcoves housing cast gold impressions of worthless detritus, such as blue-tack, coffee cup buttons and dust. The contrast between the almost religious exhibition design and the profane subject is quite powerful.

In the catalogue, fellow jeweller Roseanne Bartley talks about Guiney’s work as a connection to place:

The nothingness of which Guiney speaks does not refer to an emptiness or lack but rather it is a way of looking into a space and discovering value or substance. 

Caz Guiney is profiled in Craft Unbound as a liberator – someone who subverts the hierarchy of common and precious by putting the gallery into the street. In this case, though, she puts the street into the gallery.

Image: Pinpin, 18ct yellow gold, cast from safety pin found in Swanston St, Melbourne, 2007