A town where everything is footy: How a star player is merging sport and art

Sydney Morning Herald

13-05-2025

At the Runner Up rooftop venue in Collingwood Yards, Darcy Vescio is preparing a very different type of clubroom. Carlton's star player in the women's league, leading goalkicker and sometime vice captain, is also a practicing artist.
This Saturday, as part of Melbourne Design Week, Runner Up is hosting Re-Imagining the Clubhouse, a one-day exhibition in which 10 artists explore team sports from new angles. Vescio's work subverts the focus on victory, with pink tufted pennant flags commemorating missed goals and lost glories. 'Devastated,' reads one. 'Next year,' reads another.
'These spaces are always about the club's triumphs and celebrated moments,' Vescio says. 'I wanted to explore the failures and moments of sorrow. They're what makes the triumphant moments special.'
Footy and art are atypical dual careers. For many, there's a distinct divide between the two. Vescio doesn't see it that way.
'I think I've always liked doing stuff with my hands,' Vescio says. 'Sport and art allow me to be expressive in different ways. When I was a kid, I was either outside playing with a ball or inside with all my art stuff sprawled out on the lounge room floor, scrap booking, making rings, papercraft, anything.'
Some of Vescio's earlier works are in the show too, including a large, fluffy rethink of the Brownlow Medal as the 'You Go Alright Trophy', and a colourful painting entitled Markwood, depicting a Sim City-like town where everything is footy, from the oval 'draft pool' to the grinning Luna Park face wearing a mouthguard. It's playful, detailed, and deeply personal.
It's also a far cry from the real Markwood, where Vescio grew up. Population 230, 20km outside Wangaratta, it's 'mostly paddocks,' they tell me. Vescio has been kicking a footy since they were five years old. Any paddock was an oval, and any two objects were a goal. To the local community, Vescio was 'the girl who played footy'.
'It spurred me on to be good at it, so I could be part of the team and blend in,' they say. As an AusKick kid, half-time at a men's senior game was their Grand Final. Off the field, they played with their brothers off the main road. 'If I heard a car coming, I'd wait and try to time it so I'd be diving for a mark or doing something spectacular on the off-chance the driver would swivel their head and see. I needed to show people.'