Carriageworks presents the first major exhibition in Australia of work by acclaimed Italian contemporary artist Francesco Clemente, as second in the annual Schwartz Carriageworks series of major international visual arts projects. Presented free to the public from 30 July until 9 October 2016, Francesco Clemente: Encampment will include six of Clemente’s celebrated large-scale tents, transforming 30,000 square feet of exhibition space within the Redfern-based multi-arts precinct into an opulent tented village.

For this exhibition, Clemente has collaborated with a community of artisans in Rajasthan, India, over three years from 2012-2014 to create a series of tents featuring intricate patterns, emblematic imagery and vividly painted human figures, both real and allegorical. While the interiors are hand-painted in tempera by Clemente, the camouflage fabric of the exteriors is hand-wood blocked and embroidered with golden thread by Indian artisans. Viewers will be invited to walk around, amongst and inside the tents to explore the works from different perspectives.

Exhibited alongside the artist’s tents are four altar-like vertical sculptures – titled Earth, Moon, Sun and Hunger – which marry references to contemporary life with archaic forms. The exhibition also features a suite of 19 erotically-charged paintings from a series entitled No Mud, No Lotus (2013–2014), which draws on traditions of Mughal miniature painting.