Edward Woodley and Nina Treffkorn of China Heights both grew up with artist parents; painters, sculptor, illustrator, weaver and ceramicist between them, with a cross-continental background that spans Australia, Germany and Ireland. So perhaps it’s not so odd that they have been running conceptual gallery space and creative studio China Heights, in Sydney, now in its 20th year. Partners in life and their business, they talk candidly with artist Shaun Daniel Allen (Shal) about developing a curatorial style together, non-attachment to objects, and why sharing meals with friends around their big dining table at home in Sydney's Inner East feels like second nature to them.
What was your upbringing like? Where did grow up and how were you introduced to art?
EW: I grew up with both parents being artists, which allowed me to embrace the creative side of my life, whatever that means. I always had an opportunity to paint and draw and nurture my creativity as a young as a child and as a young adult. It taught me the valuable lesson of being realistic about the greater world of art, which is that art should first and foremost be about your own satisfaction or the opportunity to actually make art as opposed to trying to make money. But like with anything, if you work hard, you can potentially be successful at it. Or maybe you're not doing it the right way. Joking! My siblings and I spent a lot of time at home with our parents, and were able to create our own worlds through painting, diorama, you know, anything that we could do using our hands. When we couldn't buy something, we would make something, which I think is quite revered now. But at the time, we all felt very much outside of the norm. Everyone else would have the fancy new things from the shop, and we were having to make our own things. My Mum will dispute this, but that's what happened.
Were your parents making art at home or did they have studios?
EW: I think the notion of artists having a home studio, at that time, I would say, was a privilege, and an exclusive situation – it's more common now. At the time, my Mum primarily worked in illustration, so she was always working at home. My parents were separated at this stage. And then my Dad painted at home. He's a painter-sculptor. So, they didn't have separate studios. I grew up amidst piles of paper and canvas and paint, and I wouldn't say it encouraged me, I just don't think I even had a choice. I grew up thinking that was the norm, and I've accepted it ever since.
NT: That's definitely reflected in our home, even now. If you think of something, you just build it. I think that's almost like your imagination coming into play again.
EW: If I think about my brothers, one of them makes props and costume for movies, and my other brother is a builder who builds these fantastic houses. I think it's all the same thing really, being encouraged to use our hands to make or create our worlds. If I need something, I can create it – usually from used materials I've salvaged or saved, which is really practical in the gallery. So if we have an artist that needs a difficult installation, or has a request for a plinth or anything unusual, I'm usually able to create it in-house. Or I can direct somebody to make it. I'm always behind the scenes, there's no mystery to how anything's created.
Also, the layout of your house definitely feels like a product of you.
EW: I studied design, and I think even at a young age, I always had an awareness of objects – not just their functionality, but the aesthetic side of things. So, with that in mind, I was able to find bits and pieces, maintain them, fix them up. Say it's a chair that I was after, I wouldn't buy it, but I'd make things then sell them and use that as a form of savings to buy the next thing and the next thing and so forth.
NT:
I think I grew up in a similar way to Edward. Both my parents were artists – my Mum in my earlier years was a weaver and a ceramicist, and she is now a painter. So, I really grew up around them in the studio. And we just had to entertain ourselves. Again, maybe we didn't have so much at that point in our lives, so we were making everything out of cardboard, paper and wool; endlessly playing with wool and clay from my Dad's pottery studio. And when I think about it, I suppose I've never not been around art. Though I definitely rebelled against it in my teens. When my parents divorced we stayed primarily with my Mum, which was a poorer upbringing – it was actually very poor, especially in contrast to how my Dad kind of splintered off and lived. Aesthetically, there was quite a big shift at that point as well. Like, My Mum's house was more influenced by her own upbringing, which incuded a lot of artefacts and objects from the Middle East, Turkey, Syria, Greece, and then Scandinavia and Finland, where she had grew up. I found it a bit hippie-ish. I was maybe even a bit embarrassed by how it felt so put together. Now, in hindsight, I actually think it's amazing. She really made a home – and my Dad ventured into extremely interesting, very specific high-end furniture. As soon as the 80s hit, and he could buy and import Memphis Milano furniture from Italy, he did. I have since, quite nostalgically, found one of the Memphis chairs that he had when we were kids, just because I was always quite fascinated with them. But I definitely rebelled against the lifestyle and just found it so torturous in my teens; just the amount of people – artists and creatives – that were constantly coming through my Mom's house, and the flow of it. I really wanted to have a stable life and stable future, and I thought that
was achieved by not being involved in the arts. But I suppose you always end up going back to what you came from. It’s the thing that I know the most.
Yes, you’ve both ended up kind of back in the life you came from; making things, and your house and space is very similar to your upbringings.
NT: Yes, but I stopped making and creating in that way. Edward has developed and progressed and has been able to keep making things, which is so incredible. I think my creativity is maybe more in conceptual visualisation. I can't make anything.
The gallery seems to be very much an extension of your aesthetic and the things you like, and especially the people in the community around you. After 20 years of the gallery, what works are making their way out of the gallery and into your space?
NT: Well, I think for a long time we had no real art in the house. I felt that we needed a visual break when we returned home. But recently, in the last few years, we have started bringing more works back in.
EW: In the gallery I have ample storage for art, and not all that art is available for our own personal collection. I've gone through various stages in different places I've lived in, where I have a lot of art or have very minimal or no art; I’ve discovered in the last sort of, you know, 10 years, that I'm drawn not only to functional objects, but also objects, just because I've always had a limited wall space. You know, sculptures or vases or ceramics or bronze – anything – you can walk around and appreciate it, and it can live on a tabletop or on a coffee table, or a bookshelf. And that's been interesting to see. The gallery doesn't necessarily specialise in that stuff. But as a collector of things, I like to have those objects because then they create a story. And they're really a talking point. Currently speaking, our boys have artworks in their rooms, which we quite often gift or swap with friends or artists for their own work, or you know, their friends or our friends. There’s no real prerequisite on it other than just always keeping it fresh and cycling through. But it's purely for our enjoyment, there's never a set aesthetic. It’s always in rotation.
Are there ever disagreements about what's going in your space?
NA: No, I think we have a pretty similar aesthetic. Edward has amazing taste, so even if I’m not totally on board with something, even if I don't fully understand it, I'm happy, if it gives him joy, for it to go in. Would you agree with that?
EW: Yeah, I would. I think it's always a shared discussion. And I think we look at things together. And we have similar aesthetics; similar visual languages. But it's been great because I've been able to learn about antiquity from Nina's Mother or her Father's travels and journeys, and it's given me a broader insight into that. If anything, I've probably learned more from Nina, particularly when it comes to non-conventional, less obvious objects, like when it comes to, say, a Stone Age ottoman from Damascus, or something that she might have gotten from her Grandparents or her Mother. I have more appreciation for it. Sometimes I think one of us will hang something and then maybe the other rehangs it. But I think it's quite easy for us, because we're hanging out all day long. It's easy for us to kind of be fluid with it. I know that once something is put somewhere, it doesn't necessarily stay there. In my mind it might get six months, but we’ll move it around, we might rotate it. I think the primary thing to understand, for us with any art, is that it’s really about the conversations we have around it.
What's the one necessity or comfort item that you really need in the house?
NT: I don't think I have one. I actually would say nothing because I can just walk away from everything and start again. I don't know. I think I'm possibly the opposite of a hoarder. I don't think there is a comfort item.
EW: For me, it would be my music collection. In saying that, I probably play more music on Spotify now, which is a bit of a joke, but I'm still avidly buying any form of music from my friends or peers or immediate community. I think it’s really important to keep that level of support. That's another part of the gallery's journey – its close attachments to music. Each record tells a story, and has a connection to either a part of my life, or someone that I'm friends with or have an association with. I can pull out any single record and probably have a story about it.
You have this big table that sits in your dining room – this one that we're currently sitting at. I feel like it's a clear indication that you like having guests around to share a meal. When I first moved here, we had dinners around this table surrounded by all different people, mostly artists and creatives from all different industries. Are big dinners something that you grew up around, and which influenced you now having lots of people around?
NT: Nonstop. Like I said, in my teens, I started resenting that busy lifestyle, because it just felt so transient. It felt like there was never a private moment in the sense that I would walk into the house and I never knew who was going to be there. I had always vowed I would never create that environment for my kids, but it has kind of happened – just maybe not to the same extreme. I think my children know everyone that is in our home.
EW: What we have is almost the opposite of how I grew up. We were not around lots of other people, but I guess being from a large family – I was one of five boys, and there were two sets of parents – the only way I've ever lived is in big groups of people. When I moved out of home, I moved in with a bunch of people in a warehouse, and ever since then I’ve always lived with lots of people. I've always loved the idea of communal meals and tables. And here it’s more about bringing people together. I think there's a level of support when you’re in each other's company. You don’t have to speak, it's just about being in the space and sharing the energy with others in a space. But I can’t remember the last time I was alone. Maybe on a plane, travelling… People talk about loneliness and boredom, and I can't remember what any of those things are. I guess I'm very lucky in that sense, that I get to always be around a lot of people and I always have family and community. Obviously, it’s the most important thing to me, which has been the model for the gallery as well. But back to this 12-seater dining table, it's very rarely entirely full, but the majority of nights, it’s at least three-quarters-full.
And it’s the most central and biggest thing in the house.
EW: Our dear friend made this table for us. He was a creative visionary and recently passed away. We worked with him to create the design, and I helped him out with a few other creative projects, and in turn he made this table for us as a gift. So I always get to enjoy that every single day, as a memorial for the guy, but also just as a sort of central meeting point.
