Zilverster: štelo-stelo

Zilverster is an ongoing collaborative project, established in 2010 by Sharon Goodwin and Irene Hanenbergh; Melbourne-based artists renowned for their imaginative, elaborate and meticulously rendered solo practices. What began in 2010 as a problem-solving exercise—with one artist offering problematic, unfinished works to the other for advice on resolution—has evolved into a rich shared practice that continues to extend the discursive as well as process potentialities of each artist.

While there are many shared interests and concerns between the two artists—fantasy, (art) history, cult iconography, alchemy, supernatural phenomena to name just a few—each operates from a distinct temporal and imaginative framework: Goodwin's contributions are embedded in a medieval, Gothic context while Hanenbergh's derive from a European Romantic sensibility. Zilverster's practice continues to develop out from an original series of beautiful, fantastical drawings that remain compelling in their strangeness.

For štelo-stelo – which has multiple, overlapping  meanings in Esperanto, including star, money and thief – Zilverster presents a suite of five of their hyper-meticulous style drawings together with a series of intricately engraved glass vessels. Esperanto scripts, ancient annotations, historic illustrations, pop-culture references and even corporate jargon materialise on the vessels. Alone, each object signifies a distinct message, but en masse their ambition becomes much more sinuous and complex; a visual code for the viewer to decipher.