Thank you to those early-career Members who submitted entries for this year’s prize. You’ll see in the material below that the future of our visual arts in glass is looking bright.
Clicking on each tile shows the full entry for the artist: this includes an artist’s statement, CV and examples of their work.
This Prize is peer-selected; awarded to the entrant who receives the highest number of votes cast by Ausglass members.
Voting for the 2020 prize closed at midnight, Saturday 10 October, 2020.
The prize-winner will be announced during the 2020 AGM - 12noon(AEDT), Saturday 24 October.
Artist statement: Inspired by ancient mountain and rock formations, I aim to utilise the materiality of glass to evoke sensations of wonder in the representation of geological forms and imagery and their ancient origins. Fine mark making and subtle highlights are created, through a series of kiln-forming and casting processes, by exploiting the reactive properties of lead and sulphur-based glass. These processes also mimic natural geological rock forming processes of sedimentation, intrusion and metamorphism.
2019, 40 x 9 x 40 cm, kiln-formed glass. Image: Michael Haines
2020, 125 x 84 x 3.5 cm, kiln-formed glass. Image: Michael Haines
2020, 25 x 17 x 25 cm, kiln-formed glass. Image: Rita Kellaway
2020, 128 x 88 x 6 cm, kiln-formed glass. Image: Michael Haines.
w: ncqin.com
i: @nc_qin
Artist statement: ‘Intent’ explores the glorification of violence in the pursuit of power. That might equals to right. The idea of having the bigger gun (or blade in this case) leads to the bigger say. Modeled after the legendary weapon of a revered Chinese warrior Guan Yu, who has since been deified into a god and symbol of loyalty, righteousness and bravery, I wanted to examine the acts that lead to this image of power. By creating an object of beauty out of a symbol of death and violence, I want to question the nature of conflict and its true ability to serve the ideal it fights for - the handle a wash of blood red represents the intent and spirit of the wielder transforms into the fuming, polluted, swirling chaos in the blade. Violence even done under good intentions transforming irreversibly into something else. Questioning if violence is ever noble?
2020, 65 x 20 x 5 cm, cast glass. Image: Courtesy of the artist.
2020, 65 x 20 x 5 cm, cast glass. Image: Courtesy of the artist.
2020, 65 x 20 x 5 cm, cast glass. Image: Courtesy of the artist.
2020, 65 x 20 x 5 cm, cast glass. Image: Courtesy of the artist.
fb: @schwartzglass
Artist statement: My work captures a fascination with the way structures in built environments are designed and constructed. Using glass, I examine how multiple processes can combine to gain structural integrity. Assembly presents basic forms constructed through repetition of interconnected components; the structure of each form uses the same simple element, maintaining their profile by opposing methods. The fused segment, with a strong internal structure, sits in contrast to the loose components contained by an exoskeleton, or gabion, structure. Both methods allow for the components to potentially stack infinitely.
2019, 40 x 47 x 26 cm, blown and cast glass, and steel. Image: Rob Schwartz.
2019, 40 x 47 x 26 cm, blown and cast glass, and steel. Image: Rob Schwartz
Artist statement: I am a philosophy-based artist, these questions and my desire to seek the ‘answers’ is my fuels that keeps me going on in the past. There are many things that fascinate me in this world, and I will never stop my quest for exploring them and finding my answers by creating artworks.
2020, 10.2 x 15.5 x 3.5 cm, Fused glass. Image: Alice Hu.
2020, 26.5 x 8 cm, glass cast. Image: Image Alice Hu.
2020, 26.5 x 8 cm, glass cast. Image: Alice Hu.
2020, 26.5 x 8 cm, glass cast. Image: Alice Hu.
Artist statement: The concept of ‘the narrative’ has always underpinned a lot of my work – the creation of a character situated within a world beyond our own who possesses their own story, and is far from human. My ongoing series "MONUMENT" is a testament to that - involving the development of otherworldly beings surrounded by strangeness and mystery that stand tall, and glow from within. With heads crafted from glass, and torsos from clay – these earthy elements form the bodies of saints. Monuments to martyrs who fell in a battle beyond our comprehension, in a realm far beyond the reaches of our own. Embedded within each of the figures' chests sit orbs wherein there lies a piece of bone; a relic of the fallen - preserved for all eternity within the glass.
2019, 37 x 35 x 22 cm, hollow sculpted glass, slip cast ceramic, aluminium foil, bone. Image: Ella Maude
2019, 22 x 19 x 14 cm, hollow sculpted glass, slip cast ceramic. Image: Ella Maude
2019, 37 x 31 x 22 cm, hollow sculpted glass, slip cast ceramic, aluminium foil, bone. Image: Ella Maude.
2019, 22 x 19 x 14 cm, hollow sculpted glass, slip cast ceramic. Image: Ella Maude.
Artist statement: I spent my younger years in Tasmania. I grew up amongst a rugged landscape, where the rhythms of life are omnipresent. The ebb and flow of warmth and coolness, light and darkness, maintain equilibrium in all living things. My aim is to evoke atmosphere, mysticism and elusiveness while referencing the natural phenomena of space and light. Due to the duplicitous qualities of glass, it is my material of choice. Like the land and seascapes of this distant south island, glass can be beautiful, yet treacherous and has qualities of strength, yet fragile to human intervention. Through my art practice I like to delve into philosophical juxtapositions found in the natural world by creating works that drift between an aesthetic that is suggestive of a mood or emotion and forms that may be imaginary or based on known, but not always recognised natural structures. In turn this leads to the creation of curious and at times whimsical works. My key influences are also duplicitous, for example, from the detailed precision of Haeckel’s sea creatures to the sublime, semi-abstracted land and seascapes of Turner. I underpin my practice with the classical elements of earth, fire, air and water. Other influences are classical music and poetry as both trigger in me a visualisation of the narrative that is held in the music or writings.
2020, 25 x 56 cm , Spectrum 96 sheet glass, powders and frits. Kiln formed, slumped and cold worked. Image: S Wiscombe.
2019, 21 x 61 cm, Spectrum 96 sheet glass and powders. Kiln formed, sandblasted and cold worked to a silky matt finish. Image: S Wiscombe.
Artist statement: Through the integration of holistic therapy and creative art processes, my work encourages a connection between mind and body. The meditative process of making allows me to express and release my negative energy, to disconnect from overwhelming thoughts and to stay in the moment. The glass forms are created through the rhythmic exhalation of breath and body movement, shifting focus from my anxiety and getting into the state of flow. When filled with essential oils, the diffused homeopathic scent replaces the space that the negative energy created, completing the cycle of healing from the works inception to its final outcome.
2019, 30 x 20 x 15 cm, Lampworking, borosilicate glass, essential oil and cork. Image: Ella Maude
2020, 22 x 10 x 11 cm, lampworking, borosilicate glass, essential oil and cork. Image: Ella Maude
2019, 20 x 15 x 10 cm, lampworking, borosilicate glass, essential oil and cork. Image: Ella Maude
2019, 20 x 20 x 5 cm, lampworking, borosilicate glass, essential oil, sterling silver and cork. Image: Ella Maude.
Artist statement: 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 with glass blowing, kiln-forming, and enameling to strike a unique balance between art and craft. These conceptual works are influenced by Fauvism in my strong and expressive use of colour as well as the serendipitous nature of the hot-glass medium. 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.
2020, 30 x 17 x 11 cm, mold blowing, enamel painting, cold working. Image: Pippy Mount
2019, 28 x 28 x 14 cm, mold blowing, enamel painting, cold working. Image: Pippy Mount
2018, variable sizes, mold blowing, enamel painting, cold working. Image: Pippy Mount
2019, 25 x 17 x 14 cm, mold blowing, enamel painting, cold working. Image: Pippy Mount
