China Heights and the birth of the culture of cool
Established in 2004, China Heights was founded on an organic ethos of ‘sub-culture making’. As is often the case with taste-makers, what has now become one of the most innovative cross-form galleries in Australia began as a young art and design oriented group of peers riffing creatively in a warehouse.
Design, fashion, art, skating, graffiti, music and surfing all rolled into a grimy, dilapidated part of inner-city Sydney on the fringes of Chinatown – where run-down warehouse spaces were unfathomably affordable to rent and living was considered undesirable.
Today, of course, Surry Hills is one of the most desirable inner-city neighbourhoods – due in no small way to these art and fashion communities that sprang up in the ’90s and early 2000s. The culture of cool infused in the Surry Hills trope has been directly influenced by the creative capital on which China Heights trades.
The gallery’s programme features a stable of artists who are selected based on practices that fuse art with design. The team at China Heights has also partnered with major event and fashion companies, including Louis Vuitton, to curate large-scale installations, site-specific artistic activations and staged fashion commissions. China Heights remains one of the most dynamic and ever-evolving galleries in Australia, continuing to pick up and push the careers of new and emerging artists while maintaining a steady eye on broader trends.
Shal, Otis Hope Carey, Clare Wigney, Henrietta Harris, Jarryd Lynch, Ellen Virgona
An artist of particular note in the China Heights stable is Otis Hope Carey. An Indigenous practitioner from the mid-North Coast of Australia, Careys practice centres around design and painting motifs that take to the form of surfboards, paintings, murals and clothing. His unique and recognisable style his popular within the surf and skate sub-culture scene where his board, deck and fashion designs are highly sought after.
The recent addition of Pierre Mukuba to the gallery stable is an exceptional move on part of the gallery directors. Congolese-Australian Mukuba is the hottest artist of the moment exploring displacement and cultural relocation through narrative painting.
An ever evolving centre for progressive art making and art practice China Heights is well worth adding to your list of galleries to be watching for the next hottest artist in play for your collection.
For more information on its latest exhibitions and current roster, visit China Heights.
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