March 23rd, 2020Instrument artworks at Mount Franklin

A STUNNING new exhibition in Mt Franklin, now set for Spring, has struck just the right note.

Nick Carpenter is a luthier – he has been making stringed instruments for more than 30 years and it’s his passion – he runs weekend courses for people to come and make their own guitars.

“I was 17 when I finished my first one,” he said. “I run weekend courses – we have guitar kits and we put them together, 13 different models of electric guitars, and no-one else in Australia is doing electric guitar weekend courses.

“The other course is the one-day build, it’s an acoustic cigar box guitar.”

Now, Nick is showing the artwork that he’s been creating over the past couple of years using another form of exquisite artwork – instruments.

“Building instruments is an art form, but it’s very restrictive – you have to build instruments in a very particular way, so they function properly, and I wanted to do something a little bit more creative so I moved into the art side of things where there are no boundaries.

“All the art involves musical instruments in one way or another, some are re-purposed old instruments that are no longer working, I’m turning them into sculptures and I also rebuild from scratch very unusual instruments, and also mixed media artworks which either involve string, wind or percussion instruments in some way.”

Last year, Nick entered a Piano Transformation Challenge in Melbourne – and won.

“A lot of pianos are going to landfill, about 2000 a year, so they started a competition seeing what people could turn pianos into to re-use them, recycle them, and give them a new life. That was right up my alley.

“I turned it into a few items – the first one was a very large horse, which stood about 1.8m high, which was made from the frame of the piano and the other was a very large piano guitar, we used the soundboard out of the piano for the guitar, and those two entries won their categories.

“That was the first exhibition I’ve ever entered.”

Trojan and Piano Guitar will be among the 40 works of art at Nick’s Spring exhibition, each telling their own story about these wonderful machines of music and our relationship with them.

“It will be open to anybody who wants to come and have a look.”

Keep reading The Local for more information on dates and times.

Words: Kate Taylor | Image: Kyle Barnes

Pictured: Nick Carpenter in his workshop