Soft Toy City is a group exhibition curated by Tegan Iversen, and asks a group of artists to explore their relationships with soft toys as adults. A show brimming with innocence, comfort, sentimentality and nostalgia, Soft Toy City is an invitation to gaze back to a time where soft could be synonymous with comfort. Covering a large scope of mediums from painting to soft sculpture, Tegan has invited a group of revered local artists to explore the playful, pure and significant nature of childhood attachment.

This group of artists have covered considerable conceptual ground, with the work spanning various different interpretations of what it is to be soft. Friendly looking cuddly hippo toys are juxtaposed against much more grown-up images of books on Impressionism (Megan Rennie’s Still Life of Bedside Table), and we see sequins and gentle-looking toys encasing the girls that sit by them, depending on the tangible link to childhood soft toys provide (Brooke Van Der Linden Tammy the turtle).

Artist list: Aaron Grech, Anna MacNeill, April JY Kim, Brigit Maher, Brooke Van Der Linden, Caitlin Shearer, Cat Rabbit, Emma Hampton, Evie Barrow, Gemma Flack, Hayley Martin, Kaitlyn Hickey, Kathy Sarpi, Kenny Pittock, Kitiya Palaskas, Lizzi Morris, Louise Gilligan, Lucy Roleff, Maddy Cleeve Gerkens (Plush Magic), Megan Rennie, Min Pin, Nani Puspasari, Peo Michie, Pey Chi, Phoebe Beard, Tai Snaith & Tegan Iversen.