Caelli Jo Brooker

DESIGNER AND ARTIST

Address: Level 4, 153 Hunter St, Newcastle
Hours:  by appointment
Property Donor:  Iris Capital
Launched: 9 May 2017
Closed:  17 October 2017

Contact:
Caelli Jo Brooker
m:  0402 958 998
e:  [email protected]
w    caellijobrooker.com
i      instagram.com/caellijo
p    au.pinterest.com/caellijo

Who are you?
Caelli Jo Brooker, a designer and artist

What do you do?
I make images and objects that sit in the nexus between art and design. I am interested in materiality, print culture, visual communication design, typography, paper, illustration, digital and analogue media, as well as artists’ books, and my practice is primarily explored through drawing, design, painting, print and textiles.

What inspired you to get involved with Renew Newcastle?
After finishing postgraduate study, I was missing cups of tea with fellow studio inhabitants and creative professionals, so was looking for a way to feel part of the creative community again. Having seen the ways in which Renew has changed our city and unlocked the potential of underutilised spaces for the collective creative and cultural good, the opportunity to be involved in the Renew network, and share a studio space in the city was too good to pass up.

What are you doing in your new space?
I would like to take the opportunity presented by this space to develop new visual ideas for a body of creative work. There is a large digital component to my everyday creative practice as a designer and lecturer, and I would like to make a conscious shift towards other forms of making. I plan to ‘travel light’ in terms of media and technology in the space; use, recycle and repurpose materials that I have already; and go back to working on paper with a view to combining that with textile and surface design.

Tell us about the space – what was its previous use? Anything unique about it? Your response to the space?
I am lucky enough to share a space in the Wolfe Street Studios, with illustrator, Tallulah Cunningham. We are located in an Inter-War Art Deco gem that was formerly the Duke of Kent Hotel.