Portfolio

Bethany Walker GLASS AND METAL

Email: bethany.walker@network.rca.ac.uk Website: Bethanyellenwalker.com

Artist Statement My work is a continuous exploration of and experimentation with the materiality of glass and metal. Having grown up in the Black Country, the heartland of England’s glass and steel industries, I gravitate towards these two materials. They link me to my childhood and represent the familiarity of my industrial heritage.

My interests lie in human nature and human conditioning, observing and researching people and documenting how the world affects them and how they affect the world. My creative process is driven by deciphering how they behave, feel, react, develop, support one another and stand alone. I want to produce a tangible response to transient feelings.

I work with the inherent qualities of my materials. Glass produces watercolour-like qualities, merging and owing streams. I juxtapose the emotive visual power of owing glass with metal armatures, a metaphor for the human form. I want to push the boundaries of these mediums to their limits through making, observing and learning, capturing the ways they react with each other. I select contrasting and complementary colours, based on how they evoke certain emotions I am trying to portray.

The sculptures emerge from a liminal space between control and freedom.

There is an element of planning - the rest is chance. I observe the glass melting and reacting to the metal, then intervene at a precise point to crash-cool the kiln. Freezing an ephemeral moment and allowing the materials to make their own poetry.

Cross-examination is a large scale sculpture where molten glass meets and melts around a steel cross.

The glass and metal, once ďŹ red, create an interrelated structure that highlights the gravitational movement that happens within the kiln.

This interaction acts as a metaphor for control, challenges and interrogation which can be experienced in life.

Cross-examination Kiln-formed glass and welded steel rod 100 x 35 x 35 cm 2019-2020

The coloured steel rod becomes an obstacle in the path of the owing glass, it alters the route of the drop but does not halt its progress. Capturing this precise moment of interaction is part of the concept behind The Obstacle is the Path: a eeting feeling frozen in time, emulated within a kiln, and immortalised.

The Obstacle is the Path Kiln- formed glass and welded steel rod 25 x 10 x 10 cm 2020

The Liminal Space Kiln- formed glass and welded steel rod 30 x 25 x 20 cm 2020

The Liminal Space focuses on the fusing together of coloured glass on top of a metal welded skeletal form. As I initially position the unďŹ red work inside the kiln, I ďŹ nd the anticipation of the precariousness of the ďŹ ring both simultaneously exciting and frightening.

Once the door is shut, the glass comes alive, moving and being shaped by heat and gravity, draping over the metal rods that lie in its pathway. The Liminal Space is a marking of this inimitable passage of time, emulating a sense of disorientation experienced when in a transitional period.

(click to watch video)

Internal Waves Kiln- formed glass and welded steel rod 30 x 10 x 20 cm 2020

Water has no shape of its own, it takes on the form of its surroundings. When water becomes a waterfall, the gravitational pull and the earth underneath affects the way it moves and meanders.

Akin to water, emotional feelings don’t have a shape of their own, they are energy owing through you and formed by you.

Emotions connects conceptually and acts as a metaphor for the internal and external spaces within humans: what we show and what we hide, such as our inner most emotional states and reactions.

Emotions Kiln- formed glass and welded stainless steel rod 20 x 15 x 11 cm 2020

Engulfed is formed from a bent copper tubing substructure on top of which is slumped greenhouse glass. Copper oxide is added to the glass before ďŹ ring in order to create bubbles and textures.

The interior and exterior areas created in the ďŹ ring form intrigue and notions of concealment, producing an engaging connection between the two spaces.

Engulfed Kiln- formed glass and copper tube 10 x 15 x 15 cm 2020

Impending Collapse pushes the limits of the possibilities of glass. It juxtaposes the rigid structure of the copper grid with the soft ow of glass pulling and pouring through it, comparable to human fragility and tensile strength.

Impending Collapse Kiln- formed glass and welded copper 30 x 15 x 15 cm 2020

Support is Needed utilises structure, movement and colour to symbolise human emotion in a poetic way.

The copper rod acts as structural support for the melted glass precariously balanced above.

Colour choice is very signiďŹ cant in my work, thus I created a rich autumnal toned patina on the copper rod, emulated with similar glass colours, to signify the intense eruptive feeling of being overwhelmed.

Support is Needed Kiln- formed glass and copper rod 25 x 15 x 10 cm 2020

Mask I and Mask II are proposed pieces which explore how glass and metal substructures can coexist.

This work is an examination of how glass flows during formation.

After firing it is constructed, appearing to defy the manner in which it was made.

The glass appears to explode and burst out of the metal cage. A turbulent energy, a feeling of anger and force is suggested, exemplified by the colour palette chosen. Both carrying distinct emotional charge.

Mask I Kiln- formed glass and copper wire 25 x 15 x 10 cm 2020

Mask II Kiln- formed glass and steel wire 25 x 15 x 10 cm 2020

During this period of lockdown I have had time to research my industrial heritage and utilise the resources available to me.

Working in my family's metal factory in the Black Country has been very nostalgic. It has provided the opportunity to make ambitious larger scale works.

My attention was drawn to the machines and how they have helped to form the lives of many who have worked there, including my own. I have adapted these mechanical processes of bending, cutting, enfolding, beating, grinding and welding to produce a succession of sculptures, composed of my own body manufactured in steel rod.

Reection addresses the body as a site of feeling and experience; the tidal ups and downs on the journey of life. The hollow form invites reection.

Reflection Welded high tensile steel rod 130 x 50 x 160 cm 2020

In this current climate I have had time to contemplate the relationship I have with my friends and family and how difďŹ cult it is being apart.

Connection was made with the sense that even though physically we are separated, some part of us is always connected. It reects on the importance of supporting each other so that we can stay balanced.

Connection Welded high tensile steel rod 160 x 100 x 100 cm 2020

Whilst reecting on my time at the Royal College of Art, Transformation was conceived. A monument to mark this passage of time. The body is a vehicle through which we experience and perceive the world. Transformation is a portrayal of my perspective on the world changing and myself transforming.

Transformation Welded high tensile steel rod 320 x 160 x 50 cm 2020

Bethany Walker GLASS AND METAL

Email: bethany.walker@network.rca.ac.uk Website: Bethanyellenwalker.com