2014 KIRRA ILLUMINATING GLASS AWARD
Pictured front: Plexus (detail) by Bethany Wheeler Fused glass, sheet glass, aluminium, lighting
KIRRA 2014 KIRRA ILLUMINATING GLASS AWARD
KIRRA 2014 KIRRA ILLUMINATING GLASS AWARD
Exhibition Dates 3 June 2014 to 13 July 2014 Exhibition curated by Suzanne Brett Kirra Galleries (enter via Atrium) Federation Square Cnr Swanston & Flinders Streets Melbourne, VIC 3000 Phone: +613 9639 6388 Email: gallery@kirra.com facebook.com/KirraGalleries @KirraGalleries www.kirragalleries.com Published by Kirra Australia Pty Ltd Designed by Julien Stannus Printed by CMYKhub™ ISBN: 978-0-646-92218-8
CONTENTS Foreword by Peter Kolliner OAM.......................................................... 6-7 Llewelyn Ash - Sunset Silhouette I (Steel Blue)....................................... 8 Llewelyn Ash - Sunset Silhouette II (Gold Topaz)..................................... 9 Christine Atkins - Refraction XIV.......................................................... 10 Peter Bowles - Deep Blue.................................................................... 11 Roger Buddle - Forest Fungi................................................................ 12 Scott Chaseling - Light Descending...................................................... 13 Triona Cooney - A Capture Moment to the Past...................................... 14 Giselle Courtney - Blossom.................................................................. 15 Andrew Crewes - The Sentinel.............................................................. 16 Spike Deane - Midnight Grove.............................................................. 17 Evelyn Dunstan & Gabrielle Dickens - Chasing Butterflies....................... 18 Benjamin Edols & Kathy Elliott - Peel Lamps........................................ 19 Kevin Gordon - Lest we forget.............................................................. 20 Kevin Gordon - Into the Blue............................................................... 21 Holly Grace - Shelter – Horse Camp Hut............................................... 22 Marc Grunseit - Yipwon....................................................................... 23 Tony Hanning & Steve Stewart - Great Egret.......................................... 24 Tevita Havea - Hina............................................................................. 25 Christopher John - Castilian Light......................................................... 26 Miles Johnson - Ice Influrescence Illuminator........................................ 27 Laurel Kohut - Heartthrob.................................................................... 28 Jeremy Lepisto - The Acquisition.......................................................... 29 Amanda Louden - Ixia viridiflora lamp................................................... 30 Sabrina Martins Loulé - He changeth the times and the seasons............. 31 James McMurtrie & Dónal Molloy-Drum - Wirrabara................................ 32 Richard Morrell - Fragment.................................................................. 33 Nick Mount & Saxon Rudduck - Turn 3................................................. 34 Peter Nilsson - Anemone..................................................................... 35 Pipit Pujiastuti - Chrysalis................................................................... 36 Waynne Rayson - Metalbug.................................................................. 37 Harriet Schwarzrock - Echo.................................................................. 38 Tim Shaw - Sunflowers........................................................................ 39 Jason Sims - Rise and Fall II............................................................... 40 Crystal Stubbs - Ascend...................................................................... 41 Crystal Stubbs - Mimic........................................................................ 42 Yusuké Takemura - Calla Lily Bouquet ................................................. 43 Lienors Torre - Digital Light................................................................. 44 Bethany Wheeler - Plexus.................................................................... 45 Robert Wynne - Raven’s Clutch............................................................ 46 Robert Wynne - Lotus.......................................................................... 47 Laurie Young - Medusa........................................................................ 48 Judging Panel............................................................................... 49-50 People’s Choice Award........................................................................ 51
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FOREWORD by Peter Kolliner OAM Mighty oaks from little acorns grow…. This old proverb can apply to the Kirra Illuminating Glass Award (KIGA) exhibition and to the progress of Kirra Galleries which before its formation was just a wish. A year ago, whilst opening Kirra Galleries Light in Winter exhibition, Kate Brennan, then Chief Executive Officer of Fed Square Pty Ltd challenged us to partner Fed Square in an Australian and New Zealand competition featuring light transmitting glass art. Without realising the full extent of the effort and work involved to mount such an exhibition, we accepted the challenge and the results are in this catalogue. When Kirra Galleries were invited to mount the exhibition, in turn the Australian and New Zealand glass art practitioners were challenged to produce a new genre of light emitting glass sculptures. How they rose to the occasion for the first such competition is truly amazing. When we decided to mount this exhibition I wrote a small introduction to a document outlining our hopes and aspirations. I think for the introduction to this catalogue it is worth re-printing as it explains how the past was our inspiration for the present and hopefully for the future: “Soon after electricity was harnessed and became freely available, in the late 1800s and more prominently in the first decades of the 1900s, European Glass Artists turned their talents towards the creating of free standing decorative lights, plafoniers and chandeliers. The period was a hot house of creativity – artists such as Emile Gallé of Nancy and René Lalique produced enormous quantities of art glass. The period was short lived as the production processes often involved dangerous materials and were hazardous to the practitioners. Believing that the glory years of the Art Nouveau period can be updated, modernised and re-visited, over the past 5 years Kirra Galleries have provided an annual exhibition of illuminated glass with handmade one-off pieces of contemporary Australian Art Glass.”
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This was our aim and in this catalogue are images of the pieces in the KIGA Competition, the realisation of our dreams and the manifestation of the multi-faceted talents of those practicing artists working in glass as a medium. The pieces on exhibit and pictured in this catalogue represent the realisation of fifty percent of the design concepts submitted, from which the judges selected the finalists. Judging was a long and difficult process and very often the decisions which to accept and which not to, was based on a split vote. We thank the artists whose submissions did not make the list of finalists, and encourage them to submit their concepts for the next year’s KIGA competition. The KIGA concept could not have become a reality without the full blown participation and encouragement of Kirra Galleries’ Landlords, Fed Square Pty Ltd, with whom we are proud to partner this exhibition. It could also not have happened without Kirra Galleries’ dedicated staff who went the extra mile in ensuring that work of high quality was delivered intact, ready for display from all corners of Australia and New Zealand. Finally, I wish to thank the judges who have consented to judge the exhibition under difficult conditions as the display could only become available to them shortly before the opening.
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Llewelyn Ash South Australia
Sunset Silhouette I (Steel Blue) 63cm x 22cm x 22cm - Hand Blown Glass, Sandblasted, Laser cut Stainless Steel, Wooden Base As the golden sun sinks slowly in the sky it casts light upon the landscape creating beautiful silhouettes on the horizon. A moment in time when the birds come home and everything becomes still. These lights capture the last light of the day.
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Llewelyn Ash South Australia
Sunset Silhouette II (Gold Topaz) 78cm x 21cm x 21cm - Hand Blown Glass, Sandblasted, Laser cut Stainless Steel, Wooden Base As the sun lies down the landscape becomes simplified into beautiful silhouettes upon the horizon.
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Christine Atkins Australian Capital Territory
Refraction XIV 60cm x 60cm x 126cm - Glass, LED, Tint The interaction between light, glass and water is the basis for much of my exploratory work. I am interested in highlighting the phenomena created during the interactions between these materials while echoing phenomena found in nature. Ranging from installation to wallmounted sculpture, all of my work is created from the interplay of my chosen materials and ideas. My Refraction series looks at how light refracts through water and glass in a similar way. I use LED light shone through hot sculpted glass pieces to capture refracted light images on glass screens. The effects produced are reminiscent of micro-organisms, shells and X-ray images. The work displays its mechanism in a simple and elegant way to demonstrate this intriguing phenomenon, while providing calming mood lighting. Photo credit: Greg Piper
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Peter Bowles Tasmania
Deep Blue 27cm x 52cm x 14cm - Cast glass, polished concrete, stainless steel and controlled LED lighting. Deep Blue is an invitation to take a look at the interior spaces of solid structures. Self-referential (perhaps), and intrinsically motivated; the work allows me an opportunity to indulge my curiosity about concrete as substantial matter and its interplay with cast glass creating illuminated internal spaces.
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Roger Buddle South Australia
Forest Fungi 32cmW x 23cmH x 24cmD - Glass tube, pate de verre, LED lighting and salvaged timber Walking in dense forest during the wet winter months one often comes across fallen timber that has been colonised by fungi. The fungi can appear quickly, sometimes overnight, and wither and die just as rapidly. In the dim environment the fungi seem to glow with an inner light. This work uses a salvaged piece of fallen hollow timber as a base. There are eleven fungi “growing� from the wood. The stems are formed from etched glass tube. The caps are cast from white glass using the pate de verre method. Each stem has an internal pair of wires providing power to a miniature white LED at the top. In addition, each stem is illuminated from below by another, separate LED in the base.
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Scott Chaseling Australian Capital Territory
Light Descending 280cmH x 120cmW x 120cmD - Glass, Light & Metal LIGHT DESCENDING takes its name from ‘Nude descending staircase No.2’ 1912 by Marcel Duchamp. I started thinking of creating a sculpture in 2012 as a centennial marker though it was not realised until now. The chain links, gather, hold, reflect and refract the light, whilst cascading downward from the ceiling to flood over the floor. This ‘lightfall’ is intended as a homage and as an independent sculpture that shows movement through form and light, which like the painting, remains frozen in time. Photo credit: Peter Richardson
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Triona Cooney New Zealand
A Capture Moment to the Past Camera and Box : 22.9cmL x 25.4cmH x 25.4cmW Frame and Image : 12.7cmL x 11.5cmH x 1.3cmW - Cast glass, LED Light, Wood, Screen printed images and Perspex My current work investigates the way in which we revisit and reflect upon memories and the tendency for us to remember certain childhood events with inflated nostalgia and idealism. We have the tendency to romanticize certain periods or experience in our lives and to look back on them fondly, although in reality we know that nothing is, or was, ever “Perfect”. The present body of work “A Capture moment to the past” seeks to communicate how we explore the link between childhood memories and the common objects we owned as children or an object relating to someone in particular. Objects can spark memories from our surrounding and pasted activities. Triggered by the 5 senses of memory, we can recall certain events from the past. This series of work focuses on my own memories from childhood and what I personally remember of my grandfather and prompts viewers to reflect on their own childhood experiences. In choosing to transfer my memories to the medium of glass, I have giving them a permanence and physical presence separate to what exists in my mind and through this act; I am letting others see a part of me that they would never otherwise see. I use glass as my medium as it can give the sense of fragility of childhood. My body of work continues to develop over my final year at University; I learn new skills and address or repress memories from my childhood, which were once forgotten. Photo credit: Neil Jones
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Giselle Courtney New South Wales
Blossom 75cmL x 70cm diameter - Light Sculpture - 2014. Materials – Lampworked borosilicate glass, lustre, electroformed copper, aluminium, brass, stainless steel, 24ct gold plated. NEOZ Wasps and Low voltage 5w LED. 10w halogen globes. 300 VA DC transformer. All parts recyclable and replaceable. This work fuses art and science, combining scientific practice of borosilicate lathe work and my vision of nature and light. Pink gum blossom was the inspiration. This light sculpture grows from my extensive research into melding glass and metal, using techniques of the scientific glass blower in partnership with freehand bench lampworking and the alchemy of electroforming. New technologies in light sources such as LEDs and componentry produce complex reflections: glass, giant fibre optics and the gold and metal surfaces dance with warm light. Thanks to John Holmes ‘maestro’ scientific glass blower and Ethel Jagelman for her love of flowers. Photo credit: Jon Bader
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Andrew Crewes Victoria
The Sentinel 113cm x 80cm - Glass - fused, painted,etched, laminated; leaded lightbox This work depicts a fictive world unaccompanied by history and inhabited by unknown lifeforms. I like the idea that this world has materialised from nowhere and exists with no explanation. Photo credit: Valeriu Campan
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Spike Deane Australian Capital Territory
Midnight Grove 35-40cmD x 30cmH - Cast glass, reclaimed Australian cedar (Toona australis), gold leaf, copper, LED light fitting. My work draws on narratives found in folk, fairy tales and myth with a focus on metamorphosis. In many stories the grove is a liminal space in which the potential for becoming may be found. And the midnight hour is a time for transformation. Midnight Grove asks this question… in this place and at this time, “What happens next?”
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Evelyn Dunstan & Limelight Design New Zealand
Chasing Butterflies 70cm x 17cm - Base plate: white powder coated spun aluminium and mild steel. Lost-wax kiln cast lead-crystal butterflies and creeping convolvulus with integral cast copper conduit in flowers, and incorporating photoluminescence cast into select parts of the work (flower tips and butterflies) Chasing the elusive butterfly - the unobtainable... that thing we perceive is out of reach. Is it the challenge in the chase, or the desire to achieve? This work highlights the flittering dance of the white butterfly and the threat it represents to our harvest, alongside the conservation threats posed by the immigrant convolvulus, (that beautiful flower on the invasive vine... the conundrum that we love to hate, and hate to love.) Through the play of controlled lighting and stored energy released as photoluminescence, I am dancing/flittering with the elusive dream that one introduced threat to our ecology may one day represent the solution to controlling another.
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Benjamin Edols & Kathy Elliott New South Wales
Peel Lamps 24cm x 14cm - Hand blown glass, carved and polished with a layer of silver leaf The way that light plays off and passes through different surface textures and finishes has always been a conscious element in our work. The ‘Peel’ lamp evolved from a series of bottle forms we had made that have deep carving on heavy glass and played with the light that is captured between the surface of the glass and the bubble. They are a step towards creating a functional, beautiful light source that uses what we know and love about glass. Photo credit: Greg Piper
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Kevin Gordon Western Australia
Lest we forget 58cm x 20cm - Hand blown, triple overlaid colour, sand carved, engraved, diamond wheel cut, brush polished, jarrah base, pyrex glass inclusion The many men and women that helped defend our country have laid the foundation to who we are as a nation and we should remember them all and reflect on who we are today
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Kevin Gordon Western Australia
Into the Blue 45cm x 18cm - Hand blown, double overlaid colour, sand carved, engraved, hand and brush polished, jarrah base, pyrex glass inclusion The emotional colour of blue, whilst it is colour that can be perceived as cold, unemotional and unfriendly, it is a colour that stimulates the mind with clear thought, concentration and calmness
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Holly Grace Victoria
Shelter – Horse Camp Hut 16cmH x 28cmL x 16cmW - Blown glass with glass powders metal leaf surfaces and silver stain. Sand carved landscape and hut imagery. (Including shelf with internal light). Blurring the boundaries between the romanticism of the sublime the shadows of the Alps entwine with the man-made, and a fragile refuge emerges. A shelter from the realities of a foreboding and harsh environment consumes and yet is consumed by man. The interwoven landscape with the structure of the hut is a visual metaphor for our historical and spiritual relationship with the Australian bush. Photo credit: David McArthur - Parallax Photography
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Marc Grunseit New South Wales
Yipwon 31cmW x 15cmD x 56cmH - Kiln formed glass, ground and polished edges Stand: Painted, welded steel, self supporting frame Lighting: Edge lit along base and back by high output, strip LED The piece is one of a small series inspired by Spirit figures produced by the Yimam people of the Alamblak area of New Guinea. These are carvings of hunting deities and considered very powerful and important. I have interpreted it to represent the seismic disruption to the lives of indigenous peoples in the battle for their lives. I employed a visual metaphor for geological strata, dissected by a vertical element: a drill, Western influence, the outside world. I was also just seduced by the powerful beauty of the original carvings.
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Tony Hanning & Steve Stewart Victoria
Great Egret (detail) 162cmH x 90cmW - Carved Glass, Gippsland Blackwood, MDF LED lighting Great Egret is a collaborative work between Tony Hanning (Glass) and Steve Stewart (Wood) It is designed as an end of hallway or entrance feature and serves as a night light. Utilising the light carrying properties of glass, the egret, (in full mating plumage) is carved and engraved into the glass. The base of the piece features a lit carved and engraved panel depicting the egret’s preferred food. The piece consists of two carved and engraved panels set into handcrafted Gippsland blackwood lit by an integrated low voltage LED system.
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Tevita Havea New South Wales
Hina 50cmH x 80cmW x 50 cmD - Hot blown glass, fibreglass, nylon twine, wood ‘Hina’ is the moon goddess. The inspiration is the link between the feminine cycles and phases of the moon Photo credit: Dylan Esguerra
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Christopher John Queensland
Castilian Light 30cm x 240cm - Laminated Glass, Faceted Jewels, LED Lights This piece is the child of an actual building, an architectural commission I received 6 years ago, 6.5 tonnes of faceted glass measuring 5 meters x 6 meters. Since then I have sought to recapture that shimmering wall of glass and light in a smaller sculptural work. The technique has morphed and adapted to a more intimate scale, and now combines the play of different glass textures, subtle tints and LED lighting. Using a glass cutting method called “grozing” juxtaposed with undulating cut lines and flat polishing, the work refracts the light giving it a crystalline shimmer. I have long been an admirer of the Art Deco period in interior design and architecture, so inevitably the aesthetic of the 1920’s has informed my work with a stylized rhythm of repeated motifs and pattern.
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Miles Johnson Victoria
Ice Influrescence Illuminator 80cmH x 70cmL x35cmW - Blown glass, steel frame and LED lights Glass is a material which absorbs, illuminates, diffuses, transmits and reflects light like no other. Glass begins its life as a liquid and with this thought in mind, my recent body of work captures this essence and concentrates on fluid forms. I have tried to work with the material in its purest form – clear glass. Traditionally glass forms have been quite tight and rigid so I have used glass blowing techniques and skills to make shapes fluid and off centered that appeal and delight my vision of glass. Within this piece I have tried to use simplicity of using bubbles in glass to diffuse and create an ice like illuminated effect- freezing an intensely hot material into an ice like form.
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Laurel Kohut Victoria
Heartthrob 126cmH x 96cmW x 18cmD - Mixed media and blown glass with LED lighting. The necklace nestles against the skin, so close to the heart. An object to be held in the hand, pressed to the heart, and brought to one’s lips in a moment of remembrance or devotion. My current work is an investigation into the ways in which we form relationships with objects. I believe that jewellery items are some of the most poignant objects that come into our lives. These objects can become intimate, symbolic, treasured, or personal. By re-creating the aesthetic forms of jewellery in the fragility of glass the exploration of their varied emotional significance becomes possible. Photo credit: Andrew Barcham
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Jeremy Lepisto Australian Capital Territory
The Acquisition 75cmW x 50cmD x 75cmH - Mixed media (wood, glass, metal and light) The oscillating glow that emanates from the seemingly solid shape within the sealed and slated wooden shell of The Acquisition is held to a slow and steady rhythm. The continual cadence of the form’s inner light animates this simple shipping crate into an active agent of delivery. The exact contents of the crate, their importance and their current condition is unknown. In accordance to its title, The Acquisition may supply an item of desire to be obtained or perhaps this crate might hold within it a metaphoric tool that could lead to the transference of a realization. With every ebb of its interior light, this work quietly asks for patience into the inquiry of how its conveyance will connect and affect the agencies of both its sender and receiver. Photo credit: Rob Little
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Amanda Louden Victoria
Ixia viridiflora lamp 33.5cmH x 15.5cmD - Sandblasted glass lamp shade with Ixia viridiflora on an anodised aluminium base. The most unusual colour of these flowers caught my attention. When I saw this base I immediately knew that Ixia viridiflora would be a perfect match. Lighting and glass are such a terrific mix.
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Sabrina Martins LoulĂŠ New South Wales
He changeth the times and the seasons 40cm x 55cm x 90cm - Glass, Copper Foil A pendant sea shell, made up of pieces of glass, joined together to shed light/warmth of our nostalgic memories of the warmer times of summer during the cold winter season.
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James McMurtrie & D贸nal Molloy-Drum Victoria
Wirrabara 130cmL x 30cmH x 15cmW - Blackwood Crystal, coldworked, Mild Steel, Wattle Seed, Grampians Sand. Recently the Grampians and Wimmera regions were subjected to wild-fires, destroying and fragmenting the native flora and fauna communities. Our land is strong and stoic, not giving into the forces of nature, but constantly adapting, bringing new life and change to our land. This piece illustrates our interpretation of the significant changes in the environment, telling a story and representing the timeline of processes from absolute devastation, to renewed growth and life within the natural landscape.
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Richard Morrell Victoria
Fragment 39cmH x 28cmW x 12cmD - Furnace cast glass, black granite, LED illumination ‘Fragment’ explores the implications of humanities relationship with our history. Photo not available at time of publication - concept sketch shown.
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Nick Mount & Saxon Rudduck South Australia
Turn 3 80cmW x 63cmH x 23cmD - Composite work in blown and cold worked glass with Tasmanian Oak base and 12 V LED internal lighting. The work is a composition of curved, translucent, tapered glass tubes (or “swoops�) with internal LED lighting. The base, constructed from Tasmanian Oak veneered board holds the swoops in the dynamic composition, and conceals the electrical connections. The swoops echo the vapour trails behind fast high flying aircraft. The design is of two such aircraft racing in tight formation, at high speed, around a pylon defining the race course. The work has a dynamic and dramatic quality evoking the excitement and spiritual freedom of flight. Photo credit: Pippy Mount
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Peter Nilsson Australian Capital Territory
Anemone 150cmW x 224cmL x 30cmH - Blown and hot formed glass, steel parts and LED lighting. When I make my sculptures/chandeliers I want them to work as a kind of exclamation mark, as well as a natural centre piece with dissolved shapes in a room. As usual my inspiration comes from nature when I am swimming in the Great Barrier Reef or walking in the rain forest. I´m fascinated about how the raindrops on a tree fern leaf both absorb, reflect and transfer light, or how jellyfish and coral polyps can glitter in the sun. These organisms can cover big areas without casting full shadows. Photo credit: Andrew Sikorski
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Pipit Pujiastuti Victoria
Chrysalis 50cm x 17cm x 17cm - Cameo engraved blown glass and sandstone ‘Chrysalis’ is transformation of life. I feel strong connection with this for it is expression of feelings as new arrival in Australia.
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Waynne Rayson Victoria
Metalbug 125cm x 80cm - Slumped, etched, painted, coated and laminated glass My work explores the juxtaposition between organic and synthetic man-made forms. Photo credit: Valeriu Campan
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Harriet Schwarzrock Australian Capital Territory
Echo 113cmH x 107cmW x 16cmD - Wall mounted stainless steel armature, Blown and sandblasted glass, LED strip lighting. This assemblage of shifting hues traces a suspended horizon line. A line distorted through reflection, where stillness belies the minute and roiling energy of light and its interaction with the elements. I take pleasure in the molten immediacy and manipulation of the material. Captivated by the particular rhythms and the cadence of the process of blowing glass, these individual forms appear fluid. In aligning the components I seek to present a quiet sense of poise and balance whilst being attentive to the rhythm & poetry of the spaces between. This work is an exploration of cycles, tracing interconnectivity, circularity and balance.
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Tim Shaw South Australia
Sunflowers 93cmH x 70cmW x 70cmD - Blown Glass, Metal and electrical components Sunflowers is inspired by the “Still life: Vase with 12 sunflowers” by Vincent Van Gogh from his Arles series of paintings Photo credit: Iain Bond
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Jason Sims South Australia
Rise and Fall II 101cm x 101cm x 12.5cm - Wood, reflective glass, mirror, MDF and LED lights Part of an ongoing series exploring the potential for creating illusion through the use of mirror and lights, this new work consists of multiple elements in which the illusion forms just one part of a more immersive composition. As an artist I am motivated by an interest in the ways we construct meaning in our lives – how perception and choice directly impact our reality. The illusion in my work, at least initially, prompts the viewer to wrestle with what the eyes ‘see’ and the mind ‘knows’, but it’s not this that motivates me. I’m more interested in evoking a desire within the viewer for the illusion to conquer, at least for a moment or two, what they know to be true, in order to reach towards something more powerful and more profound – to create without complete disorientation something magical, indefinable and unexplainable. Photo credit: Pippy Mount
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Crystal Stubbs Victoria
Ascend 34cmH x 35cmW x 13cmD - Hot sculpted solid glass jelly fish in cast blocks Within this body of work I endeavor to capture the fluidity and beauty of marine wildlife. Hot glass, as a medium, lends itself to the fluid and natural behaviour of an object in water. I attempt to capture amazing sea creatures in a moment of weightless beauty. Attracting the viewer’s eye to an underwater world that we don’t readily experience.
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Crystal Stubbs Victoria
Mimic Largest piece: 36cmH x 15cmW x 18cmD - Hot sculpted bown glass octopus on blown bases. My three octopus were inspired by a visit to the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago last year and fell in love with the foyer and it’s amazing architecture and beautifully made decorative elements. The pieces that took me the most were bronze Octopus pendant lights. My group of lights endeavour to capture the octopus in a state of mimic. Blending into the colours beneath.
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YusukĂŠ Takemura New South Wales
Calla Lily Bouquet 120cm x 40cm x 40 cm (ONLY Glass piece), 173cm x 40cm x 40cm (inc wire) - Hot blown and hand carved glass, silvering, wire, LED light. I was inspired by the shape of the Calla Lily. It has the sense of silence in the shape of flower.
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Lienors Torre Victoria
Digital Light 43cmH x 11cmW x 12cmD - Solid cast glass house (lathe worked and polished), metal stand (fabricated by John Hall), digital screen with animation. The animation shows the moving rooms and domestic objects contained within the house and which give it, its daily routines and rhythms. As we peer into the interior of the translucent house, moving rooms and domestic objects pass through it. At night they softly emanate a glow much like the glow of a television in the living room. There is an interplay between real and virtual objects as the house, acting as a lens, focuses and distorts the transient interior space, and broadcasts its contents outward. The angle of vision into the form dematerializes the animated image as the reflective properties of the glass form take over with total internal reflection: the image disappears as one’s point of view is lowered. And, as the glass affects the animation, similarly the animated image alters the glass form, permeating it with colour, movement and a luminous glow.
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Bethany Wheeler Victoria
Plexus 54cmL x 16cmW x 64.5cmH - Fused glass, sheet glass, aluminium, lighting Plexus is a work that describes the creation, evolution and collaboration of a network. The work references the networks of people, objects and actions that bind and enable our lives. Sheets of coloured glass are fused together and incised when cold, then fused and incised until a network of patterns is created within the body of the glass. These segments are then cut and assembled into cross-sections and fused together. These visually complex structures become an interrelated network of the original substance. This is an illuminated multiplicity formed from the single and vice versa.
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Robert Wynne New South Wales
Raven’s Clutch 112cmH x 23.5cmD x 64cmW - Blown and plate glass, metal and bronze, LED light source Raven’s clutch articulates the significance and fragility of ownership, the importance of sufficiency and the curse of competition. Our need to stockpile is often driven by wisdom and at other times by fear, and the Raven – is it the hoarder or the thief? Here is beauty and threat, abundance and greed, vivacity and death. And that is life.
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Robert Wynne New South Wales
Lotus 97cmH x 45cmD x 35cmW - Blown and solid formed glass, steel, bronze powder, LED light source I am fascinated by the extraordinary beauty of nature. Layers of complexity resolve to elegantly simple forms. The Lotus pod is bursting with promise, delicate and robust, intricate and singular. Light, as life, is contained but for a moment.
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Laurie Young Victoria
Medusa 50 cm x 180cm - Borosilicate Flame work, crystal and furnace blown, carved, engraved, sandblasted This piece was inspired by the naturalists of the 19th century, the elegance and beauty of the Medusa Jellyfish captured in glass.
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JUDGING PANEL Robyn Archer AO Robyn Archer AO is a singer ( Helpmann Award winner, Best Cabaret Performer 2013), writer (selected speeches-Detritus-published by UWA Press), and artistic director (currently of The Light in Winter which she created for Federation Square, Melbourne; recently Creative Director of the Centenary of Canberra and formerly the Adelaide, Melbourne and Ten Days on the Island festivals). Robyn isDeputy Chair of The Australia Council, patron of numerous arts organisations and a mentor for the European Festivals Association’s Atelier. She is an Officer of the Order of Australia, Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (France), Officer of the Crown (Belgium) and holds honorary doctorates from Flinders University (SA), and the Universities of Sydney and Canberra. See more at the depArcher lounge robynarcher.com.au
Kate Brennan Kate Brennan was Chief Executive Officer Fed Square Pty Ltd 2005-2013 and was instrumental in the founding and development of the Light in Winter and more recently has been a driving force in establishment of the Kirra Illuminated Glass Award. Previously she was Chief Executive Officer of the Adelaide Festival Centre Trust and has been recognised for her contributions to Melbourne’s arts life in her earlier role at the Melbourne City Council where she played a key role in the Council’s commitment to the arts. Kate has also had extensive involvement in a range of capital infrastructure projects including the design and activity concepts for Federation Square. Kate is an active member of a number of business and community organisations including the Committee for Melbourne and the Melbourne Convention and Visitor Bureau and has been involved as a board member of numerous arts organisations and tourism bodies, including the Australian International Cultural Council, the Australian Arts and Entertainment Industry Association and many more. Kate’s commitment to the arts and great public place management are well known. Her particular interest lies in the role of cultural practice and cultural organisations in communities and cities and she has spoken extensively on these issues around the world.
Dr Grace Cochrane AM Now an independent curator and writer, until late 2005 Grace Cochrane was the senior curator of Australian decorative arts and design at the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney. From 1988 she had a key responsibility for the development of the holdings of contemporary Australian crafts and design. For over 35 years she has talked about the crafts and design in lectures and at conferences and has written for a range of journals and publications. Currently she is a board member for the Whitehouse Institute of Design, and on the advisory boards for four international journals. She is the author of The Crafts Movement in Australia: a History (NSW University Press, 1992), and a number of other books and catalogues CONTINUED NEXT PAGE
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JUDGING PANEL Peter Kolliner OAM Peter Kolliner has a Diploma in Metallurgy from the Royal Melbourne Technical College (RMIT) and a Degree in Metallurgical Engineering from Melbourne University. Following the sale of his metal refining business in 1990, he turned his interests towards the arts about which he had become passionate and opened a small gallery in Southgate which in subsequent years has developed into Kirra Galleries (of which he is a Director). Peter has an interest in glass and has been collecting since the 1970s. He is passionate about promoting Australian glass art and artists both nationally and internationally and he is genuinely amazed and proud of the fact that Australia, with a population approaching only 25 million people, can hold its own, indeed assume a leading position in the design and production of Art Glass.
Dr Matthew Martin Matthew Martin is Assistant Curator of International Decorative Arts and Antiquities in the National Gallery of Victoria. Holding degrees in Byzantine archaeology, Semitic philology and Art history, he was formerly Director of Studies at the Melbourne College of Divinity. He has recently curated an exhibition of Jacobite glass at the NGV, “Kings over the water” (2013). Recent publications include “Joseph Willems’ Chelsea Pietà and EighteenthCentury Sculptural Aesthetics”, Art Journal of the National Gallery of Victoria 52 (2013), 21-32; and “The Chelsea Pietà”, in Fire and Form: The Influence of the Baroque on English Ceramics (London: The English Ceramic Circle, 2013).
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| KIRRA ILLUMINATING GLASS AWARD 2014
PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD A People’s Choice Award will be announced on 17 June 2014. The award is a glass sculpture which has been designed and made by Kristin McFarlane. Voting can be done online at www.fedsquare.com/KIGAvote or a voting slip can be completed at Kirra Galleries in Federation Square.
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