An entire replica of Monet’s house, in miniature; a perfect recreation of Queen Victoria’s wedding dress, barely ten inches high, and an imaginative interpretation of a Thai street scene – just some of the tiny worlds on show at QVMAG.
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The Three M’s: Miniatures, Models and Memories is a new exhibition showcasing the remarkable skills of miniaturists and model-makers from across Northern Tasmania.
At the community exhibition space, the models fill the room with to-scale replications of both real-life scenes and imaginative interpretations.
Meticulous, painstaking research feeds into creations that can be a near-perfect representation of history – such as a tiny, green-tinted cake in Monet’s house, his favourite dessert.
Other creations are more free-flowing, not to scale or sourced from a diverse mix of tourist gifts and re-used products, such as earrings down-scaled to become fans, and small figures that were originally keychains now re-purposed.
Exhibition organiser Diana Ashdown said the level of detail went down to a hand-knitted ladybird, smaller than a little fingernail.
“This is collector’s stuff, but it’s also able to be utilised by children carefully,” she said.
“Everything in these cabinets is hand-made.”
The collection represents the work of fourteen miniaturists, and covers the gamut from traditional paper and wood-based creations to 3D modelling and printing for a scene of white furniture and rabbits in a tiny window.
Shops and lounge rooms, flower shows, fire trucks and aircraft, all stand in perfect design in glass cases, with an imaginative Victorian school next to small windows full of hat-stands.
“It’s a beautiful mixture of classical handcraft melded in with 3D printing … it’s remarkable the way these miniaturists have kept up with technology,” QVMAG visual arts and design curator Ashleigh Whatling said.
Ms Whatling said the exhibition was part of a community series delving in the rare and unusual talents of Tasmanian creators across the community.
“The whole point is to show there are people in Northern Tasmania who have these skills,” she said.
The Three M’s: Miniatures, Models and Memories opens on Saturday at the QVMAG community gallery at Inveresk.