Stainless

Anyone in the vicinity of Canberra must check out the exhibition Duty cycle by Rachel Bowak at Helen Maxwell's gallery until November 11 http://helenmaxwell.com/home.asp

Rachel has focussed on common domestic objects and made a series of life size stainless steel line drawings. They are elegant yet quietly humorous - and so sexy in that new designer homeware that just begs you to spend your entire credit limit and take it home to admire forever kind of way.

I like the way she's kept the installation sparse and simple and particularly the way the pieces that sit on the floor casually lean against the wall as if they've been put there to rest, while the user does something else and intends to return momentarily. There is also something about the arrangement that makes me think of language and lexicons, the works are like a list, a vocabulary of familiar things with the particularity (is that a word?) drained out of them so they take on an iconic status.