Exhibition Insight... FUSE Glass Prize
The FUSE Glass Prize is a biennial prize for Australian and New Zealand artists working in glass. It provides a platform for artists to push themselves and their work to new limits and focuses public attention on the importance of glass as a medium for contemporary artistic expression. The works of twelve established and six emerging artists in this exhibition were selected as finalists by the 2018 judging panel: Jessica Loughlin (2018 FUSE Glass Prize Winner), Robert Cook (Curator, 20th Century Art, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth), Eva Czernis-Ryl (Curator, Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, Sydney), Justine Olsen (Curator, Decorative Art and Design, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington) and Brian Parkes (Chief Executive Officer, JamFactory, Adelaide). The formal, technical and conceptual diversity represented was not the result of any deliberate effort on the part of the judges but is nonetheless indicative of the breadth of possibilities in glass and a credit to the quality of education, training and mentorship that informs practice in this medium on both sides of the Tasman. A non-acquisitive $20,000 cash prize is awarded to an established artist and an additional prize comprising $2,500 cash and a professional development residency at JamFactory is awarded to an emerging artist. The FUSE Glass Prize has been developed as a result of the commitment and generosity of an inspiring group of private donors. JamFactory gratefully acknowledges Jim Carreker and Helen Carreker, the Hon Diana Laidlaw AM, Ian Wall OAM and Pamela Wall AM, David McKee AO and Pam McKee, Susan Armitage, Sonia Laidlaw, Trina Ross, the David and Dulcie Henshall Foundation and additional anonymous donors. JamFactory also acknowledges the generosity of the supporting sponsors and presenting partners for the 2020 FUSE Glass Prize.
Emerging Artist Category Finalists
Madisyn Zabel (ACT)
Madisyn Zabel is a Canberra-based artist who investigates the growing dialogue between craft and digital technology. Using glass and mixed media, she extrapolates the dynamic relationships between three-dimensional objects and their two-dimensional interpretations. Zabel’s fascination with the visually deceptive qualities of glass began when she discovered the Necker cube - an optical illusion created by Swiss crystallographer, Louis Albert Necker. Zabel has a Bachelor of Visual Arts (Glass) (Hons) (2015) from the Australian National University School of Art & Design, Canberra. She has participated in residencies at Berlin Glas e.V., Canberra Glassworks and the Glass Studio at the Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, USA. Zabel was awarded Warm Glass UK’s Glass Prize (Bullseye Artists) in 2016 and the Jutta Cuny-Franz Foundation’s Talent Award from the Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf in 2017. Her work has been shown internationally – including the China Academy of Art, Hangzhou; Berlin Glas e.V and the Corning Museum of Glass, New York. Between 2019 and 2020 Wagga Wagga Art Gallery exhibited Perpetual Reversal, a commissioned installation of Zabel’s work.
“Within my practice, I explore ideas of perception and illusion through transparent solid glass. Since my studies, I have been fascinated by the illusionistic qualities of glass and take particular inspiration from Louis Albert Necker’s Necker cube - a simple wire-frame drawing of a cube that is a bistable illusion with multiple interpretations. Through a series of geometric glass shapes, I attempt to create my own three-dimensional versions of the Necker cube. The shifting quality of the work is activated through both perception and the vantage point of the viewer. Each piece is created from solid, transparent, glass billets that are cut, ground and hand-finished to a satin surface, creating a luminous quality.”
Illuminate III, 2020, coldworked glass, 70 x 500 x 400. Photo: The artist.
Alexandra Hirst (SA)
Building Blocks, 2018, glass, 210 x 70 x 70. Photo: The artist
While obtaining her Bachelor of Visual Arts (Sculpture) at Sydney College of the Arts (2015), Alexandra Hirst participated in an International Exchange in Visual Art at Alfred University, New York in 2013. Instantly she was drawn to the complexity of glass as a material and the collaborative aspect of glassblowing. Hirst has continued to develop her technical skills through courses at the Australian National University, Canberra and by completing a Master of Fine Art (Glass) (2019) at the Edinburgh College of Art at the University of Edinburgh. Here she explored the integration of digital processes in glass blowing and in creating large-scale glass objects. In 2020 she commenced the Glass Studio Associate Training Program at JamFactory.
“Each of these Building Blocks holds a unique internal organ derived from a different 3D modelling technique. Much like our bodies, 3D modelling uses primary processes; lofting, extruding, revolving; that form the core of the program’s functionality. To represent the vastly different form-giving potential of these processes, each organ is digitally subtracted from a cube and 3D printed to create burnout moulds. Cast in clear glass, the blocks are brought to a high polish to reveal these internal structures. Unified by a consistent external form, each building block represents simple digital processes in a manner that would be very difficult to replicate by hand. The work highlights the potential for digital technologies to open up new possibilities in glass craft.”
Ayano Yoshizumi (SA)
Icon #2003, 2020, blown, sculpted, hot-fused, engraved glass, found objects, 170 x 300 x 110; 170 x 300 x 140.
Photo: Pippy Mount
Originally from Japan, Ayano Yoshizumi is a glass artist based in Adelaide. Ayano treats her glass sculptures as three dimensional canvases, using glass blowing, kiln-forming and enamelling to strike a unique balance between art and craft. Her conceptual works are influenced by Fauvism in her strong and expressive use of colour as well as the serendipitous nature of the hot-glass medium. Ayano holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts, Industrial, Interior and Craft Design (2014) from Musashino Art University, Tokyo and completed the Glass Certification Studies Program at Toyama Institute of Glass Art in 2016. She won the Takaoka Craft Competition and the Best Student Prize at the Toyama Institute of Glass Art in 2016. She became the second Asialink Artist in Residence at Canberra Glassworks in 2017 and joined the JamFactory Glass Studio Associate Program in 2019.
“Through my practice I am interested in the use of glass as an expressive material as well as using space and colour as primary tools for considering the work as a three- dimensional canvas. The building of both internal and external spaces using blown glass and painting, creates a constructed, transparent space. The Japanese concept ma, meaning negative space, identifies the aesthetic of each object’s internal and external space. In essence, it is ma that creates the depth and complexity of the object itself.”
Erica Izard (NSW)
Emotional Tide, 2020glass, lightbox (perspex, wood, LED strip light), 260 x 2700 x 200. Photo: Greg Piper
Erica Izard is an emerging artist based in Sydney. Originally a radiographer and sonographer, Izard retrained at the Sydney College of the Arts, obtaining a Master of Fine Arts (2019). During this time she was the recipient of a scholarship to the Pilchuck Glass School, Washington in 2013. Izard’s first solo exhibition As it is right now. . . was shown at AIRspace Projects, Sydney in 2020. Her work Homage to Grief, 2019 was awarded the Plinth Prize as part of the 2019 Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize. Previously Izard won the 2016 St George 3D Art Prize for the physics of rain, 2016 and the Mosman Art Gallery’s In Situ 13 Installation Award for her glass work Wave Particle Duality, 2013.
“Emotional Tide is a work that reflects the personal journey of discovery of self. It was created during a time of emotional turbulence where it became clear to me that to continue to grow I must let go of old ideas to make room for the new. The application of glass powder and water was gestural and akin to a visual diary of that time when each panel was created.”
Photo: Greg Piper
Hamish Donaldson (SA)
Growing up in a family of glass makers, Hamish Donaldson was always inspired to make. Donaldson is a third generation studio glass artist. His Scottish grandparents were masters in the craft of glass cutting and engraving, inspiring his mother Eileen Gordon’s journey into glass blowing. His mother in turn taught Donaldson to blow glass at the family’s 60-year-old Gordon Studio in Red Hill, Victoria. Donaldson was a Glass Studio Associate at JamFactory from 2018 to 2019. He has completed masterclasses at Pilchuck Glass School, Washington; Cam Ocaği Vakf (Glass Furnace Foundation), Turkey; and Canberra Glassworks. In 2019, Donaldson began working with Ninuku Arts in the remote indigenous community of Kalka in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands to realise the Walka Waru (Warm Works) project as part of the 2019 Tarnanthi Festival. Donaldson remains an integral part of this ongoing initiative, continuing to visit and maintain relationships with the community.
“This work is a visual representation of water towers within the APY Lands. These towers are scattered within the communities and have tapped into the water table since early colonisation. The rampant modern consumption of natural resources has contributed to the disappearance of sacred, life sustaining waterholes. This work looks into the duality of these water towers being a source of life in a harsh landscape, whilst continuing to impact the environment. They are symbols of the oppression they have contained until today. The void of the table also acknowledges the empty space containing these issues within modern ‘Australia’, attempting to bring these issues to light before they fade back into the background, becoming part of the furniture.”
Water Table #1, 2019, blown glass, silky oak timber, 695 x 380 x 390. Photo: Pippy Mount
Billy James Crellin and Bastien Thomas (VIC)
Veil, 2019, sculpted hot-glass, sandblasted, hand-pumiced, dimensions variable. Photo: Michael Haines
Billy James Crellin is a designer and glassmaker based on the Mornington Peninsula, Victoria. Crellin has a Bachelor of Visual Arts in Photomedias (Hons) (2012) from Sydney College of the Arts. Crellin’s technical experience was established across organisations throughout Europe including the Academy of Arts Architecture & Design, Prague (UMPRUM); Cesty Skla/ Ways of glass, Czech Republic; Berlin Glas e.V. and Bild-Werk Fraunenau, Germany. He has trained with glassmaker Ondřej Strnadel at Valešské Meziříči Glassworks, Czech Republic and designer and glassblower Erik Meaker at Jyderup Højskole, Denmark. His training in hot-glass was further developed as a JamFactory Glass Studio Associate from 2017 to 2018. Alongside designer Eva Novakova, Crellin heads glass tableware brand Studio Dokola which aims to bring hand-made functional glassware to the forefront of Australian design. Correspondingly, Crellin’s conceptual work is significantly object focused, in his pursuit of finding the intersection between industrial and artistic frameworks of practice.
French-born Bastien Thomas was trained as a factory glassblower at Arc International, France and Klart Glass, Norway. His desire to follow a more artistic path led him to Australia, where alongside Crellin, he was a Glass Studio Associate at JamFactory from 2017 to 2018. Inspired by history, archaeology and geology, Thomas utilises both hot and cold processes in his practice, experimenting with colour and texture to mimic the natural effects of time against objects and materials. Thomas was a finalist in the Emerging Category of the FUSE Glass Prize 2018 as well as in the 2020 Milano Vetro -35 competition. While Thomas continues his glass blowing career in Europe, he maintains a strong connection with the Australian glass movement.
“Veil is the coming together of Thomas and Crellin’s practice. Two separate entities, they have merged artistically to formulate a combined vision of the material. Recognising the strength of working in groups within the contemporary glass movement, they endeavour to open up the working relationship that typically underscores the medium of hot-glass. Their partnership first developed during a 2019 residency at GlazenHuis, Belgium. Lending from one another a responsiveness and improvisation with hot-glass, a combined set of sculptural techniques, alongside an overarching architectural, geometric style. Referencing the veil technique – found in both glassmaking and fine art practices – this work considers the influence of the concealed bubble within the final form. The polarity of the shape’s hard geometry against its soft deformation – induced during the final stages of making by rapidly inflating the obscured bubble at the centre of the piece.”
Established Artist Category Finalists
Hiromi Tango (NSW)
Hiromi Tango is a Japanese-Australian artist whose work spans sculpture, drawings, photography, installation and performance. Hiromi is dedicated to generating healing conversations through arts engagement. Over recent years, her practice has become increasingly focused on exploring neuroscientific concepts through arts engagement, posing questions around neuroplasticity, empathy and epigenetics in her quest to effect healing and well-being through arts. Often using metaphors from nature to represent brain processes, her works develop through a combination of research, reflection and ritual. Whilst Tango’s practice is grounded in a fascination with scientific discovery, she remains steadfast in her role as an artist. Personal experiences – whether her own or those of community participants — drive her exploration of specific ideas and areas of research, such as dementia and aging, child development or traumatic emotional experiences. In this way, her work creates a bridge between scientific concepts and individual realities.
“Heal -Mother considers our relationship to our environment, and each other, at a time when the world seems to be spiralling from one crisis to another. It has been inspired by my mother, who has remained steadfast and calm, in spite of facing many challenges throughout her life. Even now, as we are separated by closed borders, a collapsing economy, and rampant uncertainty, I can hear her voice quietly urging me to remain calm in the face of apparent catastrophe. Gently encircled by textiles made from kimono silk, the soft light and colours draw me back to my centre. My wish is to create the same calming influence for those around me, in such anxious times.”
Heal – Mother, 2020
neon glass, acrylic coloured mirrors, silk kimono textile, 450 x 450 x 150.
Image courtesy the artist and Sullivan Strumpf. Photo: Aaron Anderson
Jeremy Lepisto (NSW)
The Extent (From the Container Series), 2018, kilnformed and coldworked glass with fabricated and black oxide coated steel, 280 x 254 x 762. Photo: Rob Little
After graduating from Alfred University, Lepisto was employed at the Bullseye Glass Factory. He worked in all of the glass production areas and with the visiting artists who came to work at the factory. This experience formed the basis of his glass kilnforming knowledge. In 2001 he left Bullseye and started an independent studio in Portland. Studio Ramp LLC, was a custom glass kilnforming fabrication studio that translated artists and architects designs into glass from concept to completion. This stable platform enabled Lepisto the ability to also exhibit his work, lecture internationally and serve eight years on the Board of Directors for the Glass Art Society. After re-locating to Canberra, Lepisto established another independent glass studio in Queanbeyan (Jeremy Lepisto Projects). With this facility, Lepisto again constructs projects for other people, creates his own work and works at the School of Art and Design at the Australian National University.
“Within the The Full Extent, a steel structure stretches across the farthest corners of its interior. It is reminiscent of a perpendicular portion of a construction crane. This item connects two illustrated and imagined cityscapes. Amongst the buildings rendered in each scene stands a single construction crane that is visibly missing a vertical section of its form. It can be inferred that the contents of this container could be utilised to complete the contour of only one of the illustrated cranes. This work looks to expose the typically unseen real-world objects that are held within shipping containers to better examine their agency. The objects held by containers (even if still in passage) connect the timelines and prosperity of their endpoints without yet existing in either destination.”
Kate Baker (NSW
Kate Baker is an artist whose practice merges photo, print and digital media technologies with studio glass. Before graduating from the Glass Workshop at the Australian National University School (ANU) of Art & Design, Canberra with a Bachelor of Visual Arts (1999), Baker studied photography, printmaking and sculpture. Through her work, Baker creates a complex human-environment layered with physical, psychological and emotional strata, inviting the viewer to consider the nuanced spaces between the self and one’s experience. In 2017 Baker returned to ANU as a PhD candidate. Her interdisciplinary research focusing on studio glass and photo media practice. Baker was awarded the Hindmarsh Glass Prize in 2018 and was selected for New Glass Now, an international survey of contemporary glass, at the Corning Museum of Glass, New York. Baker’s work has been widely exhibited internationally including at the Toyama Museum of Glass, Japan; the Palm Springs Art Museum, California; the New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe and the Venice Glass Biennale.
“Between Intimacy and Trespass has grown out of an ongoing investigation into the ethereal figure within abstracted space. The works are intended as emotional and psychological environments in which the viewer can be held both visually and viscerally.”
Between Intimacy and Trepass #4, 2019hand and digital print on silver mirror, 1000 x 1200 x 30. Photo: the artist
Madeline Prowd (SA)
Shift: 021, 2019, blown glass, cane, 500 x 250 x 190. Photo: Pippy Mount
Madeline Prowd is an early career artist currently working out of Adelaide, Australia. Receiving her BVA from ANU in 09, she then re-located to Adelaide to undertake the rigorous 2-year Associate Training Program in the Glass Studio at JamFactory. Madeline was an instructor at Pilchuck Glass School in 2018. Madeline received the Saxe award from Pilchuck Glass School in 2014, and has been Craftsperson in Residence during session 5 in 2017 and 2019. Madeline has undertaken residencies at Canberra Glassworks, The Glass Factory, Boda, Sweden and Berlin Glas e.V, Berlin, Germany. Madeline was a selected finalist in the Klaus Moje Glass Award in 2019 and has been a selected finalist in The Waterhouse Natural Science Art Prize four times, Madeline received a Judges Commendation for her entry into the 2018 Adelaide Parklands Art Prize.
“Long fascinated by the technical aspects of pattern making in glass, and the extensive possibilities of cane work, Shift: 021 is part of a new body of works exploring the intriguing manipulations of light and optics, texture and pattern. This new work showcases my recent departure from recreating literal representations of patterns in nature to instead focusing on pattern itself as the subject of my investigations. Exploiting the unique optical qualities of the material, I aim to display an absorbing landscape of tactile pattern. Utilising the bold contrast of white line-work over black, with the addition of clear glass canes to bend light and perception of the underlying pattern. Elevating pattern from merely a decorative afterthought to the integral reason for making.”
Clare Belfrage (SA)
With a focus on rhythm, pattern and texture, inspired by experiences in the natural world, Clare Belfrage has created a remarkable body of work over her thirty-year career. Melbourne-born and Adelaide-based, her international reputation as a leader in her field comes from her innovation and originality, utilising her formidable skills in detailed and complex glass drawing on sculptural glass forms. She has maintained a vibrant practice for over twenty-five years. She has been an important part of artists’ communities particularly in Adelaide and Canberra, including the glass based studio blue pony, of which she is a founding member, JamFactory’s Glass Studio and Canberra Glassworks where she played the pivotal role of Creative Director from 2009 to 2013. Belfrage has achieved significant recognition for her work. In 2018 she was the South Australian Living Artist (SALA) Festival feature artist and the subject of the festival’s annual monograph. Also in 2018 she was included in JamFactory’s Icon exhibition series – an annual solo exhibition celebrating the achievements of South Australia’s most influential artists working in craft-based media. JamFactory ICON Clare Belfrage: A Measure of Time is touring nationally until 2021. She was awarded the Tom Malone Glass Prize by the Art Gallery of Western Australia in 2011 and 2005 and in 2016 she was the inaugural Winner of JamFactory’s FUSE Glass Prize. Belfrage’s work is represented in major public collections throughout the world including: the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; the Museum of Arts and Sciences, Sydney; the Corning Museum of Glass, New York; Ebeltoft Glass Museum, Denmark, and the Niijima Glass Museum, Japan. Clare Belfrage is represented by Sabbia Gallery, Sydney.
“As an artist, my point of view is often looking from close up. The big feeling that ‘small’ gives me is intimate and powerful. The industry in nature, its rhythm and energy, dramatic and delicate still holds my fascination as does the language and processes of glass. With its origins in, a place, this piece is a cluster of textures, patterns and rhythms, marking out the movement of time in the natural world.”
Elements of Place, 2020blown glass with cane drawing, coldworked, 560 x 920 x 220. Photo: Pippy Mount
Cobi Cockburn (NSW)
Murmuration (Light), 2019glass, 1150 x 1150 x 40. Photo: Greg Piper
The practice of glass artist Cobi Cockburn is dedicated to the continual refinement of self-expression and understanding. Cockburn explores ideas of space and illusionistic depth, through playing opacity against transparency and using traditional techniques in appropriated and contemporary ways. She creates floating glass panels, which perform as minimal interventions and windows into other spaces. Her reference to the physical landscape is always apparent, however she often refers to areas of abstraction as a metaphor to define the essential relationship between self and space. Choosing glass as her primary material, she has formed a relationship with the medium over the past 20 years, which continues to evolve. To Cockburn, glass offers a unique language; embodying both a 2D and 3D presence, acting as a portal into an otherwise unreachable plane, a place of personal meaning, accessible to, yet unchangeable by others. Cockburn is a graduate of Sydney College of the Arts, obtaining a Bachelor of Visual Arts (2000) and a Master of Fine Arts (2016). She is also a graduate of the Glass Workshop with a Bachelor of Visual Arts (Hons) (2006) from the Australian National University School of Art & Design, Canberra. She received the Tom Malone Prize in 2015 and 2009 and the Ranamok Glass Prize in 2006. Cockburn’s work has been published in New Glass Review; art ltd.; American Craft; and Craft Arts International. Her works are held in international collections including the Palm Springs Art Museum and the Corning Museum of Glass, New York. Cockburn is currently based in Kiama, New South Wales. Cobi Cockburn is represented by Sabbia Gallery, Sydney.
“Murmuration (light) explores the silence in synchronicity and the beauty of unspoken energy. Highlighting the potential of colour and abstraction as stimulative devices to spur emotion beyond the constraints of reality, I delve into the intertwined relationships of art, geometry and spirituality. Both defined and balanced the underlying grid pattern represents a matrix of material and immaterial elements – a blending of the physical and spiritual that equalises feeling. There is no higher or lower ground. Its energy is uniform and woven together, generating a vibration of matter – a metaphor for human psychology and understanding. Through compositions of soft colours and layered lines, I explore this intricate construct of innate feelings and timeless motion that references a form of silent faith for the artist.”
Penny Byrne (VIC)
Through her sculptural practice, Melbourne- based artist Penny Byrne applies her keen sense of politics to interrogate whether individuals have any true agency or ability to determine ‘truth’ when it is has become intertwined with subjectivity and sentimentality and blurred by ‘fake news’ and the effects of mass participation. She is concerned with the state of the world and our place within it. Through her work she asks us to consider where we stand and how we feel, never preaching, she prefers to gently guide us to a deeper understanding of our times. She is not afraid to tackle the big issues head on, often with wry humour and wit, and always with a deeply considered and intelligent compassion. Byrne’s background in ceramics conservation and law informs her practice. Her sculptural works are held in public collections including the Art Gallery of Western Australia, the National Gallery of Victoria and the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney. In 2015 she was exhibited in the Venice Biennale exhibition Glasstress Gotika at Palazzo Franchetti on the Grand Canal.
“It’s no mistake that the title of this work starts with a hashtag. #StandwithHongKong has hundreds of thousands of posts on social media and is still trending even today. I made this work during my residency at Canberra Glassworks in November 2019. It is my response to the massive protests that took place in Hong Kong for many months last year, and is my way of showing my support for the protesters. To protect themselves from riot police, firing tear gas and rubber bullets, many protesters resorted to wearing protection that was readily available in hardware stores - yellow construction helmets, goggles and grey gas masks with pink filters. During my residency, I regularly posted progress images on Instagram (@pennb). I received many comments from people in Hong Kong thanking me for making the work. They appreciated that they were not alone, and that the world was watching.”
#StandwithHongKong, 2019, glass, mild steel, 440 x 310 x 350, Photo: Brenton McGeachie
Gaffer: Tom Rowney, Cold Work: Catherine Newton, Metal Smith: Sean Booth
Created with support provided by Canberra Glass Works, through the Australia Council for the Arts Visual Arts and Crafts Strategy.
Nadege Desgenetez (ACT)
Lucent, 2018, blown, sculpted glass, mirrored, carved, hand-sanded, plywood base, steel bracket, 1590 x 600 x 300. Photo: Greg Piper
French-born Nadège Desgenétez is a visual artist, glassblower and an educator. Her career has spanned across Europe, North America, Asia and Australia. In France, Desgenétez obtained a Bachelor of Arts (Industrial Design) (1991) from Université de Caen Normandie, before continuing her glass training at Centre Européen de Recherche et de Formation aux Arts Vérriers (CERFAV) between 1993 and 1995. After working in studios in Europe, and travelling to the United States as a teaching assistant to Italian maestro Lino Tagliapietra, she moved to Seattle to attend the Pilchuck Glass School with a full scholarship in 1998. Here, she worked with artists such as Dale Chihuly, Benjamin Moore, Dante Marioni, Dan Dailey and Preston Singletary. Since 2005, Desgenétez has remained a lecturer at the Glass Workshop of the Australian National University, Canberra. Desgenétez has been the recipient of several prizes and awards including the Prix de la Vocation from the Fondation Marcel Bleustein Blanchet (2004); the Prix d’Honneur de la Fondation de France (1997) and the Pilchuck Glass School SAXE Award (2004 and 1997.) She has participated in residencies at Northlands Creative Glass, UK; Pittsburgh Glass Centre, USA and the Tacoma Museum of Glass, USA. Most recently her work was included in the 2019 exhibition New Glass Now at the Corning Museum of Glass, New York.
“My work investigates ideas of connection to place. It is informed by my experience as a migrant and mines references to the body, familiar landscapes and the process of glass blowing. I aim to explore and convey experiences of presence and interrelation with place by harnessing the ways the material interacts with light, colour and space through form, surface and reflection.”
Yusuke Takemura (NSW)
Yusuke Takemura is sculptor from Osaka in Japan. Takemura completed his Bachelor degree in glass from Kurashiki University of Science and the Arts in Japan. In 2009, he continued his studies in Australia completing a Masters Degree in Studio Arts at The University of Sydney. Takemura’s innovative cutting glass methods are a daring fusion of traditional techniques along with contemporary knowledge that he has developed to translate ideas relating to human experience, memories and history. These intriguing poetic forms are subtle investigations the infinite relationship between the bodily and sentient aspects of human existence. Takemura’s works were gradually recognised and were shortlisted for the prestigious sculpture prizes and glass art prizes around Australia. He was also invited to worldwide exhibitions at SOFA Chicago in USA, Art16 and Affordable Art Fair in Hong Kong. Takemura was granted from Japan Foundation New York in 2014 to attended the GAS conferences in Chicago, USA.
” Isolating myself in the Australian bush elicits a spring of self-understanding. Experiencing detachment from civilization leads me back to a renewed awareness of connections and a sense of belonging within society. Seeing beyond Silence is inspired by the radical development of information technology, which at once offers both a closer proximity to the world and connections to individuals on social networks. Accumulated personal data gives rise to the sensation of a virtual image of myself; self which interfaces with greater number and variety of people without physical connection occurring. The vessel is evocative of an abstracted human figure. The object offers a complex surface created through grinding and polishing, yielding an ethereal shell perforated by organic-shaped voids and interlaced with a continuous optical fibre. Seeking dialogue with my work I am compelled to query what connection means to me and how I belong to the elaborate networks of our society.”
Seeing Beyond Silence, 2019glass, optical fibre, stainless wire and sphere, gold leaves, 1260 x 30 x 30.
Image courtesy of the Artist and Gallery Sally Dan-Cuthbert
Yusuke Takemura is represented by Gallery Sally Dan-Cuthbert, Sydney
Wendy Fairclough (SA)
Tuna Heke/Migrating Eel, 2020, cast lead crystal, 80 x 600 x 1040. Photo: Grant Hancock
New Zealand-born glass artist Wendy Fairclough is based in the Adelaide Hills. She completed a Bachelor of Visual Art (Sculpture and Printmaking) (1991) and a Bachelor of Applied Arts (Glass) (2000) from the South Australian School of Art at the University of South Australia. Drawing from this background of printmaking, sculpture and applied arts, Fairclough creates compositions and installations using blown and cast glass; cast bronze and aluminium; and found objects. She focuses on what we have in common regardless of culture and religion. This focus has led her to artist residencies in China in 2018, New Zealand in 2016, and India in 2012. Previously a finalist in the inaugural 2016 FUSE Glass Prize, Fairclough was nominated for the inaugural Tom Malone Prize, awarded by the Art Gallery of Western Australia in 2003. She was nominated for the Ranamok Glass Prize five times between 2002 and 2009. Fairclough has exhibited throughout Asia, New Zealand, USA, Canada and Australia. Her work is represented in public collections nationally including the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; the Australian National Art Glass Collection, Wagga Wagga, NSW; the Australian National University Collection, Canberra and the Museum of Australian Democracy, Canberra. Internationally, Fairclough’s work is held in the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (Te Papa), Wellington; and in the United States, at the Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio and the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Los Angeles. Wendy Fairclough is represented by Sabbia Gallery, Sydney; Masterworks, Auckland, NZ; New Zealand Glassworks, Whanganui, NZ.
“I‘m interested in what we humans have in common - regardless of culture, race, or religious beliefs. I’m looking for the connecting place where we can recognize our sameness. Experiences of home; sense of belonging; food; work; ritual; stories; myths; all feed my curiosity and influence what I make and what material I use to make it with. It matters deeply to me that my work is accessible to people from different walks of life and that they can bring their own meanings to it. The now endangered New Zealand tuna (Maori for longfin eel) are of great significance to Maori culturally, nutritionally and economically. Many Pakeha New Zealanders also feel a strong connection with them and almost always immediately relate a fond memory relating to them whenever mentioned. Both cultures enjoy them as a food source.”
Marcel Hoogstad Hay ( SA)
Marcel Hoogstad Hay is an Adelaide-based artist and designer working primarily with blown glass. In most of his work, Hoogstad Hay draws from traditional Venetian cane techniques, exploring and creating complex patterns and optical effects in glass. Hoogstad Hay received a Bachelor of Visual Arts (Hons) in 2012 from the Glass Workshop at the Australian National University School of Art & Design, Canberra. During 2013 and 2014, Hoogstad Hay was a JamFactory Glass Studio Associate. He completed a residency at Berlin Glas e.V. in 2015 and in 2016 he worked at Do Studio in Oaxaca, Mexico as a technician and hot-shop assistant. In 2018 he was an instructor in hot-glass at Sydney College of the Arts, and spent two months in the USA as a scholarship student at the Penland School of Craft, North Carolina and as a Rosenberg Resident at Salem State University, Massachusetts. In 2020 Hoogstad Hay showed a body of new work alongside that of fellow 2020 FUSE Glass Prize Finalist, Madeline Prowd in the exhibition Distorted Trajectories at Craft ACT.
“I am interested in ideas that appear in astrophysics and quantum mechanics and my work addresses the ideas of spatial and temporal relativity, and our perceptions of spacetime. In this piece, Superposition II, I am referencing diagrams that illustrate these phenomena, and attempting to question the preconceived notions of time as linear and singular. I have used sections of cane to illustrate the granular and staggered nature of things as they appear at a quantum scale, and have tried to address the indeterminate nature of our universe by creating multiple, overlapping layers that represent superpositions of spacetime.”
Superposition II, 2019, blown glass, kiln formed glass, 465 x 845 x 10. Photo: Brenton McGeachie
Kathryn Wightman (NZ)
Digital Parent, 2020, sifted and sintered glass powder, 3660 x 5400 x 6. Photo: Michael McKeagg
Kathryn Wightman began working with glass as a student at the University of Sunderland (UK), 2000, where she obtained a degree in Glass and Ceramics followed by an MA in glass, 2005. In 2006 she was awarded a Craft Council placement to assist in establishing a creative practice. This led to Ph.D research undertaken at the University of Sunderland, 2012 focusing on the integration of glassmaking and printmaking processes, funded by Arts Humanities research Council, England. Since completing research Wightman has undertaken work as a visiting lecturer at the University of Sunderland she has also worked as a glassmaker at the National Glass Centre, Sunderland. In 2012 she relocated to New Zealand to take up a post of Glass lecturer at the Wanganui Glass School. Since relocating to New Zealand she has been awarded the Emerge Glass Prize, Gold award, the Ranamok Glass Prize 2014, the Young Glass Kvadrat Prize 2017, winner of the Whanganui Arts Review 2018 as well as being a selected finalist in the Fuse Glass prize 2016 and 2018. Her work has also been selected for New Glass Review 33, 37, 38. She delivers workshops around the World and lectures in multiple creative areas across the UCOL Whanganui School of Creative Industries.
“Hundreds of hours of videos are uploaded to YouTube every minute. Around two billion monthly users access the website, including many children. As a mother of a young child and newborn, Wightman is interested in scrutinizing this digitally connected world and the media it produces, which in turn informs the environment in which her children will grow up. The pattern recalls the familiar and reassuring designs of floral vintage wallpaper, intending to evoke feelings of security. The image transitions incrementally with patterning fading slowly from the top until it becomes uniformly green along the bottom edge. It mirrors an algorithmically generated web experience, beginning with the safe and familiar then slowly devolving into the strange, sinister and dangerous. Videos from YouTube are projected onto the work but only fragments can be discerned; the platform and its workings unable to be grasped solely through the content of the videos themselves.”
FUSE Glass Prize is showcased in Gallery One at JamFactory Adelaide from 18 May - 20 September. Open to the public from 6 July 2020.