NEON HART

custom neon signage and neon art made in melbourne australia. neon hart creates authentic neon lights for the melbourne community. handmade and crafted in australia. whatever you can draw we can create.

Pooling from a team of industry professionals “Neon Hart” accomplishes impossible design tasks through combined knowledge. Artists involved are skilled practitioners who seek opportunity to enhance their commercial skillsets by application in a creative sphere. They are some of the few artists in the Australia wielding the set medium, neon, by their own hands. Having received international recognition for their combined innovative practice of the medium, Neon Hart continues to create one of a kind artworks, complete commercial commissions for the wider Melbourne community and offer Neon courses to keep this rare skill set alive. The Neon Hart team is driven by Emma-Kate Hart (design/glass work), Fernando Melendez (design/fabrication/assembly/installation) and supported by Steven Cole of Coles Neon Shop.

Emma-Kate Hart

 ARTISTIC STATEMENT

“A city with a rusted heart and a broken nose”
Nelson Algren – The Neon Jungle

I am drawn to alluring synthesis of both the dream-like aesthetic of capitalism and its sinister cultural implications. As an artist, I aim to make commentary on our highly stylised environments and perceptions and how these social constructions dangerously simplify the complexities of the individual.  I use Neon as my primary medium for its enormous communicative power through its continued prevalence within our society, both in commercial and poetic applications, for over a century. Neon, a city-dwelling succubus of sorts, cutting hot beams across the night to form pathways of urban value, decay and adventure. I rework the medium’s long held associations with commerce and monetary control to instead give voice to the individual who feels silenced within these systems. An act towards rebellion, as well as an attempt to offer a dramatically powerful platform to speak from, my work generally focuses on themes of reduction, objectification, and oppression.

Artist biography

Emma-Kate is currently the only apprentice neon glass bender and full-time female neon glass-bender in Australia. After her body of work, “Eliot’s lovers” was selected for the Art Express Program as part of the higher school certificate in 2010, Emma-Kate studied a Bachelor of Arts and Fine Arts at the College of the Fine Arts, New South Wales. She moved from her south-west Sydney to the city centre and became immersed within Sydney’s underground cultures. From urban explorers, writers, artists and the fetish community, Emma-Kate became deeply captivated by the people and experiences she had whilst living with her partner’s family who ran 7 of Sydney’s top escort services and then within the walls of the famous Hibernian Art Commune. Overtime Emma-Kate began making poetic links to neon lights that illuminated cityscapes and the darkness and creativity within the cultures it breeds. She self-taught neon theory, whilst contacting any last remaining Neon factories that still existed in Australia about the possibility of work experience. In 2014, Emma-Kate relocated to Melbourne, Victoria to work under Steven Cole at Coles Neon Shop, Victoria. Over the last 4 years she has lent her rare skill set for facilitation of neon works for conceptual artists such as Kiron Robinson, Fiona Hillary and Kon Dimopoulos. her commericial work is featured in the National Gallery of Victoria, the Museum of Public Art and Public Art Melbourne Biennial Lab.  Working as a commercial sign maker much of her work is seen littering the streets of Melbourne in bars and cafes. She also teaches CIT courses in neon out of Canberra Glassworks as well as providing mentoring and support for artists who have engaged with the material within her own communities. Emma-Kate applies her skill set for her own creative endeavours maintaining her own neon workshop focused on creative and personal projects. Her work utilizes the medium and its cultural associations to make commentary on the dangerous allure of capitalism and its social implications. She has exhibited her work throughout Melbourne with a permanent exhibition of her work at Luna Roja, Northcote. Recently Emma-Kate was recognised by the Museum of Neon Art, in LA, through an invitation to exhibit in She Bends, the largest all-female neon exhibition ever put together. after recieiving a residency at canberra glassworks, she has most recently showcased her collaborative project with artist fernando melendez, “electric bell jar” as a finalist in the hindmarsh prize in canberra.