Odd Beauty: The Techno-Eccentric World of Steampunk

International Group Exhibition
Southampton Arts Center, New York
23 September – 12 November 2017
Curated by Art Donovan

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Odd Beauty was an ambitious international exhibition of contemporary Steampunk art and design, curated by Southampton artist, designer and curator Art Donovan at the Southampton Arts Center in New York. The exhibition brought together 20 artists from seven countries, including Australia, the United States, United Kingdom, France, Canada, Switzerland and Japan, presenting sculpture, design, mechanical objects, costume, technology and imaginative constructions that explored the distinctive visual language of Steampunk.

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Drawing on Victorian aesthetics, mechanical ingenuity, science fiction and imagined technologies, the exhibition considered a world in which the technological possibilities of the present might have emerged through the materials, craftsmanship and visual culture of the nineteenth century. Brass, timber, gears, machinery, exposed mechanisms and contemporary technologies were transformed into extraordinary objects that occupied the space between invention, history and fantasy.

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Saxon Reynolds was selected as one of the international participating artists, exhibiting alongside established and influential practitioners from across the global Steampunk movement. The exhibition provided an important international platform for Reynolds' assemblage practice and its fascination with reclaimed materials, mechanical components, imaginative characters and the transformation of discarded objects into unexpected sculptural forms.

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The exhibition opened to a packed house and attracted significant attention throughout its presentation. Its program extended beyond the gallery displays to include curator-led tours, lectures, performances, a presentation by renowned costume designer Paige Gardner, a screening relating to Nikola Tesla and a talk and live performance by Thomas Dolby.

 

Contemporary coverage subsequently described Odd Beauty as a major and memorable moment in the 2017 Hamptons art scene.

For Reynolds, participation in Odd Beauty represented an important early international milestone, placing his work within a significant global exhibition of Steampunk art and connecting his Australian practice with an international community of artists working across sculpture, design, technology and material experimentation.