Close Reading featuring new work by artists Tom Burless, Melissa Cameron and Minhi Park.

A close reading is a deep and sustained analysis of a passage of text. The reader carefully reviews language, content, structure and pattern to better understand the text and the writer’s intention. This is not reading for pleasure, but to deeply understand and interpret. Alta Forma’s Close Reading presents three new bodies of new work by the artists each created through deep engagement with a material and subject. Traversing wayfinding and visualising the liminal spaces of a journey, to creation from byproducts of street sweepers or the act of keeping precious objects and making ham 함(traditional Korean lidded boxes). The artists are brought into orbit to demonstrate a connection through intensity of practice, a desire to deeply understand a subject and their capacity for poetic expression.

About Tom’s project:

“Found in the signs and cyphers that litter the landscape on the route between my home and my workshop, Wayfindings seeks to define a language that describes the key liminal aspect of my life, the banal, necessary journeys and the routes chosen to arrive at the same destination day after day. Guided by overlapping and sometimes interlocking trains of thought that rise from the urban landscape, food, Bruno Munari, condoms, colour, the speculative cinema of Tarkovsky, desire, toys, discarded drug paraphernalia, the architecture of cat scratching posts, audio books (mostly modern Asian history)  pop music, the compulsive work of homeless creators and how these things collide with the natural world of gum trees, rainbow parakeets, the sky and the endless cycle of a puddle's transition from purity to poison.” Tom Burless, 2026

About Melissa’s project:

“Mild steel sweeping blades break off and fall from large street sweeper trucks when they clean. If you know where to look, you can find them left behind on streets the world over. Thousands of these thin metal strips have been collected by me and on my behalf by my jewellery colleagues and other conscientious observers around city streets and cemeteries. I began making chain for a large artwork called rapidyclosingwindow #1, using 2.5cm x 1cm chain links made from the blades in concert with other recycled metal and plastics. After making hundreds of meters of the same chain to complete this work, it permeated my practice. I have made several detours using street-sweeper-blade chain, diverted or even borrowed from the large work: a shrug that later grew into a chain dress, work featuring offcuts from the chain making process, work using the rust dust collected from chain manufactured into ink, I’ve used every scrap of the reclaimed material. Collectively these pieces are imbued with a story of environmental recklessness and conscious reclamation and reuse.” Melissa Cameron, 2026

About Minhi’s project:

“As someone who cherishes keeping precious objects inside a container—finding joy in keeping them close to gaze at and touch—I have long loved the craft of making ham 함(traditional lidded boxes). In an era where mass production is rapid and the cycle of ownership and disposal is all too easy, I wanted to create boxes that embody the true value of craft: uniqueness and utility; reflecting the artisan's historical background and personal aesthetic, yet suitable for use in everyday life. Drawing on the rich heritage of Korean traditional crafts, I fuse traditional shapes, patterns and age-old crafting techniques with ceramics, and materials accessible in the modern world. Most of the boxes were created using the coil method—an ancient pottery technique—and shaped through continuous pounding. I crafted them with box-like forms in mind, or while reflecting on the small Korean mountains I had climbed and gazed out from. Also, I incorporated various plant motifs that I love into these boxes using traditional craft techniques such as openwork, intaglio, relief carving, and inlay. While the finished pieces may not immediately reveal the full extent of the effort involved, I put a great deal of time and devotion into creating the works for this exhibition; I poured every ounce of effort I could into the work, aiming to capture the painstaking labour of traditional artisans and express my respect for them. I wanted to show the imperfect beauty of a box crafted by an imperfect human like me—the very opposite of the flawless, mass-produced objects that come out of factories. I wanted to capture the "beauty of imperfection"—characterized by asymmetry and natural beauty—which transcends artificial perfection and lies at the heart of Korean aesthetics. I hope that these boxes, once they leave my hands, will be cherished by their owners and become a source of small joys in their daily lives. I believe that, too, is a significant value of craftsmanship.” Minhi Park, 2026

About Tom Burless:

Tom Burless is a Naarm based fabricator working closely with artists, curators and galleries providing object support and structural substrates for the making and exhibition of sculptural art works. He also makes and designs objects on commission. In the late 80s and early 90s Tom designed costume jewellery, he has worked with Colombian artist Maria Fernanda Cardoso and designer and publisher Ricardo Felipe. Tom also has an ongoing collaborative, sound and installation practice with Gail Priest. Tom also runs Overshare Book Room, a small, curated book gallery and shop in Collingwood.

About Melissa Cameron:

Melissa Cameron is an artist living and working on Whadjuk Noongar land in Perth, Australia. Her aesthetic sensibility is influenced by her early studies in computer science, her first career and BFA earned in interior architecture, and her jewellery and metalsmithing MFA. Her practice alternates between research based socially aware, protest art, and technology and materials-based investigations. Her work centres the human body - physically and politically. Recent material investigations have led her to make with the steel debris left behind by mechanical street sweepers. Her works are in the public collections of the National Gallery of Australia, the University of Iowa Museum of Art, and Cheongju City Collection in South Korea amongst others, and she has exhibited in the prestigious Schmuck exhibition in Munich.

About Minhi Park:

Minhi Park is a Korean artist living and making ceramics in Naarm. Minhi’s work reflects her fascination with natural lines and imperfection, as well as her appreciation and respect in raw and traditional forms that are found in Korean culture such as heritage buildings, monuments, crafts or even daily necessities that were used in the old days. She continually refines her work using traditional Korean techniques that explore the lines, faces and figures with modern materials that she can find in different places. Through this process she combines the new ideas with the old roots of her Korean background. Minhi’s challenge is to make her work embrace the relationship between different times and environments and retain her own character in this changing world. She works with the goal of permeating someone's daily life by combining their different interpretations with Minhi's efforts and sensibilities. Having studied ceramics at Kunkuk University in Seoul, Minhi then travelled and worked in several professions for about 12 years. She restarted her ceramics career in her third year in Australia where she worked as an apprentice in a ceramic studio in North Carlton. She currently works as a freelance artist from her home studio, collaborating with local chefs and traveling back and forth to Korea to continue mastering traditional craft techniques and hold exhibitions.

Artwork: 1. Tom Burless, studio detail, 2026 ; 2 Minhi Park, studio detail, 2026. Images courtesy of the artists.

Exhibition dates: 5 - 26 September, 2026
Opening celebration 2-4pm Sat 5 September
Please note gallery is open from 2pm Sat 5 Sept

Request Catalogue

Previous Exhibitions