Art, heirlooms and vintage pieces transform curator’s rented house into a home

In 2016, when Georgia Manifold, a Hong Kong-based Australian art consultant and curator, moved into a rented 2,700 sq ft, three-storey house in a quiet and leafy corner of Jardine’s Lookout, there was no need to start from scratch. Twelve years of living in Shouson Hill with her husband, who works for an aviation company, and their three sons meant they had accrued more than enough furniture and, of course, lots of contemporary art.

“I’m big on sustainability, so when we moved in three years ago, I hardly bought any­thing new,” Manifold says. “We have a lot of family heirlooms and an embarrassing number of things have been given to us as gifts.”

House-clearance sales in Australia, which she left in 2004, and Hong Kong, her home since then, have been a good source for vintage homewares, too. Among the vintage furni­ture and inherited silverware, Manifold points out a favourite sofa dating from the 1980s – made by her mother, an interior designer – which she refreshes every now and again with new fabric.

“The only thing I bought new was lighting, which I’m obsessed by,” says Manifold referring to the various pendant lamps marking out areas in the airy open-plan living and dining space and central stairway. Their modernist designs could be mini art installations in themselves and draw the eye up towards the high ceiling of the colonial-style house, which was built in the late 60s. With two bedrooms and a bathroom on each of the upper floors, the light-filled house retains many of its original features and provides a character­ful backdrop to Manifold’s eclectic art collection.

On every available wall, paintings dating from Manifold’s time as an art student in Sydney mingle with elegantly framed landscapes, colour-block abstracts and riotous feminist iconography in mixed media.