Precious Sarah Goffman
Wagga Wagga Art Gallery
b. 1966
Lives and works in Melbourne
RC12PB90-90 (detail) 2023 plastics, enamel paint sizes various
Sarah Goffman
“just as glass is deemed precious, so too is plastic – sourced from fossil fuels it is also finite and malignant to the planet’s health”
Sarah Goffman
A glass blower I know once referred to my work as fake glass. I loved the term, having thought of plastics in that way since encountering acrylics as a child. Truly plastics were invented to substitute natural materials like glass, ivory, wood, tin etc. I’ve always seen plastic as this brilliant sparkling thing and if I didn’t know the difference between a diamond and a piece of clear plastic I would assume them to be of equal value, aesthetically. They both glimmer and sparkle, when cut they hold breathless magnificence and clarity.
In making these works, responding to the Wagga Wagga National Art Glass Collection I was initially captivated by the Leonard French work. In fact, I’d purchased something from the National Gallery of Australia shop decades ago, it was presented in a bag printed with his stained glass work. I still have pieces of the bag as it is too precious to dispose of.
Making these Fake Glass works for Precious pays homage to notions of appearance and reality. The connections between the real glass and the fake materiality of many single use plastics examines life in the Anthropocene and the economic determinants for the exploitation of natural resources. Material culture compels me. The ecological crisis we all occupy is a relentless part of everyday life and the demands on nature.
I’ve been collecting and playing with plastics and making countless ‘stained glass’ references in my work for the last three decades, using plastics to falsify the effects. The works I selected for Precious were intuitively chosen as there were so many remarkable pieces in the collection. I’ve applied my own artistic license, the best license of them all.
Sarah Goffman Photograph: Sarah PriceAs part of Green 2023, Year of Environment Exhibitions and Programs, Wagga Wagga Art Gallery through the National Art Glass Gallery has commissioned a series of new works from contemporary Australian artists in consideration of the environmental climate crisis.
Between July and December the National Art Glass Gallery will exhibit two commissions from major Australian artists, Elizabeth Kelly with Glasshouse/Greenhouse: Maison de Verre Verte: Arc, and Sarah Goffman with Precious. These commissions have been generously supported by Wagga Wagga City Council, Create NSW and the Sir William Dobell Foundation, through the Dobell Exhibition Grant Program.
The comissioning of these artworks provides unique opportunities for the Gallery to work directly with contemporary artists as they develop new work for exhibition and collection. In the commissioning of Sarah Goffman, the artist was invited to respond to select works from the National Art Glass Collection. The creation and collection of major new works provides a platform for contemporary artists to create works in direct response to the gallery, the community and the collection, further enriching the region with their unique perspectives.
Dr Lee-Anne Hall Director Wagga Wagga Art GalleryArtist Interview
July 2023
Wagga Wagga Art Gallery’s Programs & Engagement Officer
Astrid Reed sat down with artist Sarah Goffman, during the installation of Goffman’s new exhibition Precious.
Astrid Reed: Sarah thank you for doing this interview about your exhibition ‘Precious’ at the Wagga Wagga National Art Glass Gallery. You’ve selected 10 works from the National Art Glass Collection. Out of hundreds of works to choose from, what drew you to these particular works?
ThisThe past leaves traces everywhere. Juanita McLauchlan is an artist from Gamilaraay Country living on Wiradjuri land. Both are huge tracts of what is now called New South Wales, and she is connected to both. This is a familiar Aboriginal Australian story. But whether resettlement on another’s Country resulted from early colonial conquests and settlements, was caused by various government interventions in the twentieth century, or derives from employment-driven diasporas, the consequences are always emotionally complex. They run deep. Everything McLauchlan makes starts from this place, this understanding: that a person’s history, inheritances, loves, and relationships are shaped by the conjunction of Country and family circumstance.
Sarah Goffman: So many things attracted me when I came into the collections room. The pieces I chose simply stood out to me. Some I had seen on display in the Gallery, so I already knew they were fantastic, I wanted to do copies of these. My choices were organic and intuitive.
An essential part of McLauchlan’s own life story, as part of an Aboriginal diaspora, is her ineradicable emotional bond with family members. Here, in in gii mara-bula/Heart Hand-also, the two come together most precisely in the marriage of introduced woollen blankets, a staple of Aboriginal families since European colonization, with plants that grow in this region today.
SG: I’ve been going to museums and galleries all my life. My studies were around the Victoria & Albert Museum collection and the British Museum. Then I spent time in the Art Gallery of New South Wales, because I was in Sydney. What was around me was informing me. I often look at something through the glass and take a snap. I copy a lot of things on the Sotheby’s website, so only see it in one dimension. The closest I’ve gotten was the MannTatlow Collection of Asian Art at the Wollongong Art Gallery. They let me handle the pieces and I could really study their forms and the undersides. That way, I could do much more comprehensive reproductions. I like taking artistic liberties though, not seeing the entire piece and having to make up the areas I can’t see.
AR: During the process of making this body of work, has anything changed from the original vision you had when you first saw the glass works? Did you change any of the plastic materials that you collect or the materials that you found available to you?
SG: I would change it all now after being here longer! Sitting in front of this piece right now, I’m thinking “oh why didn’t I do that one?” I was also limited by the materials that I could access.
AR: Has the technical virtuosity, and the things that you’ve learned about glass and glass makers in the collection here influenced, challenged or pushed you in new ways?
AR: You are a collector of materials. When you saw some of the artworks, did particular things that you already own pop into your head as potential materials?
SG: Some. I could see the possibilities of what I had. Others I had to source independently because I actually got rid of a lot of materials when I moved. So I’ve been op shopping like crazy and adapting things, but it was a real hunt for the last six months.
AR: This isn’t the first time you’ve created work in response to a collection in a gallery or museum. In 2021 you exhibited works inspired by the galleries and collections at the Chau Chak Wing Museum at the University of Sydney. How does spending time with art collections inform your work?
Having lived in Wagga Wagga for more than 20 years, McLauchlan knows this terrain; her eco-printed blankets, marked by direct contact with branches, bark and leaves from local trees and shrubs, mirror back the beauty of Wiradjuri Country. With this work she embraces the flora of this fertile beautiful region. Locals will recognise the foliage of endemic plants, including the lovely broad leaves of Red-box (Eucalyptus polyanthemos) and the casuarina’s spindly needles (Allocasuarina torulosa/Forest she-oak); ironically, the leaves that McLauchlan uses most come from the mighty Tasmanian Blue Gum (Eucalyptus globulus), the official floral emblem of the State where she spent a good part of her youth; there are Tasmanian Blue Gums near TAFE NSW Wagga Wagga, where she works, and along the railway line in Ashmont, just west of the city. Look at the exquisite yuruum bulaarr/Two paths (2022). In this pair of blankets McLauchlan works with printmaking’s capacity for duplication and duality: the golden colour of the homely blanket, over printed with black; then there are the doubled sprays of Tasmanian Blue Gum leaves along each blanket; finally, the sinuous central spine brings the two together, forever linked but always separate.
SG: There was an awful lot that I hadn’t known about previously, especially with the Leonard French window, even though glass has always been my number one love. The Victoria & Albert Museum’s collection of glass is unrivalled and that’s where my spirit lies. Trying to break into the beauty that is glass has always been my impetus.
AR: You recently moved to Melbourne after living and working in Sydney for many years and you also are well-travelled, having lived in other places. Does the environment of the city that you’re in, or the place you’re in, change your artwork or your practice in any way?
SG: It’s interesting because I don’t know where the garbage is in Melbourne yet! In Sydney I had Reverse Garbage and I knew quite a few of the back alleys where there’d just always be something. I knew if we drove around a particular area, I’d always find something. Of course, there’s a lot of junk thrown away on hard waste collection days and I can always rely on that for materials.
The op shops in Melbourne are way better! Interestingly, the plastic revolution is real in this country. I can’t access a lot of those old plastic bags anymore because they don’t make them. It’s all paper bags. I’m working in a landscape where my materials are now limited. That has posed interesting questions and I have had to be resourceful. For the Leonard French response work I had to spray paint plastics to get the colours I wanted and had to be more decisive about how to reproduce some of those colours.
AR: The title of the exhibition is “Precious”, which is a really loaded word, in to in relation to systems of value; how museums and galleries collect and protect things and what people hold dear. It’s also a loaded word in relation to fossil fuels and the materials that are used in the making of glass and plastics. Can you speak about preciousness in relation to those things for you?
SG: It is so embedded in me, the sort of preciousness of material. The thrill of finding a piece of plastic that glitters in the dirt, just as a diamond or gold is found. I know it’s a toxic thing that shouldn’t be there, but I sort of value it in the way that a child would value something that they find and deem precious. I was born into the plastics era, but at the same time I’ve always felt choked by it. What an absurd world we live in. We are lucky to have this material. Then, when we’re done with it, we put this precious resource back into the ground where it doesn’t break down for thousands of years. I’ve spoken about it many times before; it’s metaphorical alchemy. The petrochemical industry is fascinating to me. Here’s this plastic that was made from fossil fuels, from dinosaur remnants, and it’s made into things we quickly view as junk and throw away.
AR: The Wagga Wagga Art Gallery’s, National Art Glass collection is an important collection that sits in a regional centre in New South Wales. A lot of people might not be aware of the collection. Was there anything that surprised or delighted you about the quality in the scope of work here at the Wagga Wagga Art Gallery and your experiences here?
SG: I’m so grateful that could access this collection, because I really didn’t know about it. Being invited to work with the National Art Glass Collection is just an amazing gift. There really is such a tremendous quality of work here. I’m surrounded by work of the highest calibre. I like the energy of these pieces and the magnitude of the collection is undeniable. I hope that my work just gives us a tiny window, a chink into the window, of what there is to enjoy in the treasures of Wagga Wagga.
Mikaela Brown
Lives and works in South Australia
Vicious vases (detail) 1995
free-blown glass, metal chain, metal cage, silver earrings, enamel, silver leaf
Purchase funded by Wagga Wagga City Council
Sarah Goffman
b. 1966
Lives and works in Melbourne
VVMB95 (detail) 2023
PET and other plastics, enamel paint, hot glue, silver sizes various
Mikaela Brown
Lives and works in South Australia
Vicious vases (detail) 1995
free-blown glass, metal chain, metal cage, silver earrings, enamel, silver leaf
Purchase funded by Wagga Wagga City Council
Sarah Goffman
b. 1966
Lives and works in Melbourne
VVMB95 (detail) 2023
PET and other plastics, enamel paint, hot glue, silver sizes various
Richard Clements
b. 1950
Lives and works in Tasmania
12 Perfume bottles (detail) 1980 - 1990
flame worked borosilicate glass
Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Joyce Kerfoot
Sarah Goffman
b. 1966
Lives and works in Melbourne
RC12PB90-90 (detail) 2023 plastics, enamel paint sizes various
Kayo Yokoyama
Lives and works in Blue Mountains
River Side (detail) 2016
hand blown and engraved glass
Donated by Laina Chan
Sarah Goffman
b. 1966
Lives and works in Melbourne
KYRS16 2023 plastics (found) 45 x 45cm
With thanks
This exhibition is supported by the Dobell Exhibition Grant Program, funded by the Sir William Dobell Art Foundation and managed by Museums & Galleries of NSW.
Precious: Sarah Goffman
Wagga Wagga Art Gallery
15 July 2023 - 14 January 2024
Wagga Wagga Art Gallery
Morrow Street
Wagga Wagga NSW 2650
W waggaartgallery.com.au
P 02 6926 9660
E gallery@wagga.nsw.gov.au
Wagga Wagga Art Gallery is a cultural facility of Wagga Wagga City Council. Wagga Wagga Art Gallery is supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW.