Author(s): Quincy McLean & Helen Marcou

Artists & Styles

The Bakehouse Project is a full-colour presentation hardcover celebrating a year at Bakehouse - a unique blend of music, art and photography. Bakehouse Studios in Hoddle Street, Richmond, has long been considered a Melbourne landmark and industry destination, with around 400 musicians passing through every week. Bakehouse is a secret hideout where international rock royalty hang out with Melbourne's local bands. Elvis Costello called the studios 'some of the best rooms in the world'. On any sunny day in the jungle-like courtyard you could run into the likes of Nick Cave & Bad Seeds, Beck, Gotye, The Drones, Dan Sultan, Kimbra, Missy Higgins, Spiderbait, Paul Kelly, Vance Joy ...or maybe rub shoulders with a superstar in the making. In November 2013, as a tribute to Lou Reed, Bakehouse displayed a giant rock poster on the side of their iconic studios. The overwhelmingly positive reception inspired owners Helen Marcou and Quincy McLean to make the wall a permanent exhibition space, viewed by up to one million motorists on Australia's busiest road every week. In addition, visual artists have created installations in eight of the rehearsal rooms. This is a world-first project where the art inspires and connects musicians in a working studio, outside of the regular confines of a gallery. Artists such as Patricia Piccinini, Mick Turner, Peter Milne, and The Hotham Street Ladies have completely transformed these rehearsal spaces. A crumbling wall is transformed by paint and sugar into an exquisite trompe l'oeil, stuffed deer and birds peer out of sinister cabinets draped with black velvet, gold-painted glam rock figures adorn walls and glimmering geometrical shapes fuse heavy metal with jewellery. This is an art book like no other - it lives, breathes and rocks.