Op-shop charity art series celebrates beauty in the everyday

In a sea of sameness, it’s lovely to stumble across something that bit different on the interiors scene and it’s even better when the sale of said item helps those most in need. The creation of talented photographer Penny Lane (and yes, that is her real name!), the series of images were created with a variety of op-shop finds with part proceeds of their sale going to the 2016 Salvation Army Red Shield Appeal and the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre. Utterly quirky and rather captivating, we’re big fans!

The project started when, while setting up a new home in Melbourne, Penny did what she always does in the circumstances and scoured op-shops looking for thrifty finds. “I was stuck in a ball of stress, so I decided to go op-shopping to find things for my house and just generally have some thinking time. I find op-shopping very therapeutic!” says Penny whose latest project, rather beautifully, was inspired by her late mother too. “It would have been my mother’s sixtieth birthday recently and she was always a great person to turn to when I was stressed and so I was imagining talking to her, and what she would say, and I felt she would say that I should just do some work for fun and get creative.” Penny started fossicking for fabulous finds during this year’s Salvation Army Red Shield appeal.

“I got inspired to create still life art works out of things that I found that day, and photograph it, and just have fun and put it on my website and if by any chance anyone bought it, I would donate some of the profits back to charity,” says Penny, who spent two weeks driving around city and country op-shops to find the objects that were styled and photographed in her home studio in Melbourne.

The series is divided by colour and was created with no specific brief beyond a desire to create something visually appealing. “It sounds a bit airy fairy but I really wanted the still life images to grow into scenes as I was making them. They took on a styled life of their own, so I would play around with the styling of the objects and flowers and see what I came up with and let the wacky or very ordinary objects take on a new meaning and life of their own. I suppose that was part of the theme, taking some very mundane, or cuckoo objects and re-interpreting their use into telling a different mini story. If that went in a bit of a wacky direction, even better! The images are meant to create new beauty from donated, every day and run down objects,” says Penny.

A keen op-shopper since her teenage years, Penny enjoys the thrill of finding that diamond in the rough. “I think I love that unexpected, surprising mystery about the op shop adventure. You might spend hours rummaging through and not finding anything but then sometimes, in the least likely place, you get super lucky and it’s such a great feeling.”

You can purchase the prints alone or framed in a Victorian Ash float frame and with only 25 hand signed and numbered copies, you’d better get in quick.

Shop the series here.