Coffee lovers and art enthusiasts have turned their morning coffee into works of art through the Locale Art Project.
From bees to portraits, abstract images to plants, participants from around the country submitted their best work in the espresso art competition from 1 September.
The competition called on aspiring artists and enthusiasts to visit a coffee outlet serving Locale espresso, be supplied with a kit containing brushes and parchment alongside a ristretto and espresso. They were then invited to upload photos of the art with the hashtag #localeartproject to Instagram, Facebook or the Locale website.
The top 10 submissions from Victoria, Western Australia and New South Wales were then selected for the Locale Art Project exhibition.
From 14 – 31 October an online auction will take place for art lovers across Australia to purchase the works of the best coffee art paintings.
All proceeds from the auction will go to CafesCart, an initiative of StreetSmart supporting grassroots organisations working in the homelessness sector.
To view the auction site, visit http://stores.ebay.com/localeartproject
A judging panel of artists, gallery representatives and design specialists will announce the national winner late October to decide a national winner on 5 November.
The prize for the winning piece of art includes a six-month supply of Locale Coffee and a La Marzocco Mini coffee machine in matte black, valued at almost $5000.
“The judges are looking for best painting the utilizes the medium of coffee. It must be an original design and display creativity,” says Adam Wright, Locale National Sales Manager. “More and more cafés are embracing art. There’s a lot of artistry in making coffee, and it’s great to see this artistry is expanding beyond the machine.”
To honour the top 10 entries from Victoria, Locale hosted an art exhibition at its Locale Lab in Melbourne on 18 October.
One of the exhibition pieces was the work of Michael Burns from Ballarat. Michael first saw the project on the La Marzocco Instagram page. As an art enthusiast he was eager to give the project a go.
“I hadn’t painted using coffee before and found it similar to watercolour paints,” Michael said. “It’s just a little trickier to move about on the paper. Using coffee as a medium had an organic, raw and earthy feel. Being able to experiment was exciting. The coffee needed a little respect and patience, and in the end I found a style I was happy with, and got a result that was not half bad.”
Michael’s painting, featured right, was inspired by espresso itself and first generation of espresso drinkers.
“I wanted to express well dressed old Italian fellows drinking from mini cups, at least that’s what I like to imagine and I love the nostalgia,” he says.
For more information visit localeespresso.com.au/the-lab/