Isabella Darcy at Haydens / Melbourne

Isabella Darcy / Reworked


27 August – 25 September 2021


Haydens Gallery

1/10-12 Moreland Rd

Brunswick East VIC 

3057, Australia



Reworked is an ongoing project of emerging artist Isabella Darcy, conceived during her time as an artist in residence with the NARS Foundation in Brooklyn, New York. Reworked is an investigation into the material processes of twenty-first century shopping and wearing – with particular focus on urban archetypes, online marketplaces and consumer cultural trends observed within social media and psycho-geographical practices, through an archival methodology.

The project explores the relational aspects of clothing and value production. Reworked draws attention to the methods and modes of production in fashion products, print media and social media, with analysis on their cultural effects throughout the last two decades. Within Reworked, Isabella diverges from fashion as a subject and moves into viewing fashion as a creative material and phenomena; situating the project besides the research and work of artist Joke Robaard’s Archive Species: Bodies, Habits, Practices and the archival sensibilities of Femke De Vries’ project Dictionary Dressings.

Further to this, Reworked explores the representation of clothed bodies in various media formats using found, taken and collected imagery. The works within Reworked consult the studies of the social mode of dress and its mass-produced impression on collective behaviour. Reworked is an interpretation of an archive that embodies a set of “fossils of graphic production.”

Isabella Darcy is an emerging cross-media artist living and working in Naarm (Melbourne). Isabella’s practice follows an interest in the systems and flux of value within consumable objects and design, reconsidering and exploring value and the alignment with ways of contemporary culture, material culture and human consumption. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) in 2020 and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2016 from Monash University.

Recent solo exhibitions include: Luxury & Labour, Disneyland Paris, 2020, Reworked (second iteration), C3 Contemporary Art Space, 2020, springsummer95, Cathedral Cabinet, 2018. Recent group shows include, Cooking with John, Haydens, 2021, Future Proof: National Graduate Online Exhibition, Megalo Print Studio, 2021, Drawing Folio 3: Abstraction, Blockprojects, 2019, the corner of the drawer, Bus Projects, 2019, Behind the Seen, NARS Foundation, 2019, Collectively, West Space, 2019 and caught up in things, Irene Rose, 2018. Isabella was an artist in residence with the NARS Foundation, New York, 2019 and is also a recipient of the John Nixon Award, 2020, Megalo Print Studio Award, 2020 and West Space Award, 2016.