In the Media
2025 Highlights in the Media
Arts Hub
After the Rain: 5th National Indigenous Art Triennial review – Tony Albert setting wrongs right
This Triennial by Tony Albert is all heart, but it also asks the big questions.
After the Rain is a pivotal point in, ‘taking a breath, planting new seeds, just taking that moment to reflect’ says Albert, but it is also a cleansing for the future way in which exhibitions, within the power-structure of the institution, can be framed.
Albert not only shows by example in this exhibition, but questions the elephant in the room: Why is the Triennial so inconsistently timed, despite its namesake? What is the commitment of the National Gallery to allowing sovereignty in Indigenous exhibition making?
The North West Star
‘All eyes on us’: triennial spotlights Indigenous art
The triennial, held at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, features just 10 works, each of them large-scale and immersive, from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists across the country.
“This was an opportunity to really give time, energy, resources to fewer projects for artists to make the most seminal work of their careers,” Mr Albert, a Girramay, Yidinji and Kuku-Yalanji man, told AAP.
Art Guide
Evolving Forms with Gabriella Bisetto
The practice of Adelaide-based glass artist Gabriella Bisetto has been sustained by the enigmatic perplexity of the human body. Growing up on a farm in regional New South Wales, where Bisetto’s family raised and slaughtered their own animals, the artist had an early acquaintance with anatomy and the transitory states of life and death.
Written by Sophia Halloway
Wed 26 Nov 2025
City News
Artist brings a human touch to her exhibition
This is a deeply contemplative exhibition.
Bisetto’s work draws inspiration from the shapes and structures found within the human body – especially the skin. As we age, our bodies change – our skin changes, we accumulate blemishes, our bodies grow, and then shrink. Our bodies become an archive of our lives.
Review by Meredith Hinchliffe
Sun 23 Nov 2025
Her Canberra
More local businesses we love this Christmas: Southside edition
Housed within the historic Kingston Powerhouse, Canberra Glassworks is the largest glassmaking facility in the Southern Hemisphere dedicated to studio glass. The space is an impressive blend of industrial heritage and contemporary design – soaring ceilings, exposed brickwork, and original machinery speak to the building’s early 20th-century origins, while glassmaking studios, galleries and viewing platforms showcase the energy and creativity of a working arts facility.
Fri 21 Nov 2025
Art Collector issue 111
50 Things Collectors Should Know:
Iltja Ntjarra Art Centre
Moving beyond their celebrated watercolour tradition, Iltja Ntjarra Art Centre ventures into glassmaking, marking an ambitious evolution of Albert Namatjira’s artistic legacy.
Written by Althea Kuzman
Jan – Mar 2025
Art Guide
Consuelo Cavaniglia’s tricks of the light
Cavaniglia works out of a sunny studio in an industrial area of Sydney’s inner west but often travels to Canberra Glassworks.
Her recent glass works play with apertures, shadows, reflections and transparencies. Nothing is fixed, and how you experience things depends on where you stand. Her current exhibition takes this idea even further, leading viewers to consider their relationship to the museum as well.
Written by Jane O’Sullivan
27 Jan 2025
ABC Radio National
The Music Show: Glass percussion with Shock Lines
Working with sound designer and composer Natasha Dubler and glass artist Caitlin Dubler, percussionist Niki Johnson explores all the different sounds and textures you can get out of glass. We meet the trio at Canberra Glassworks where they’re doing a site-specific performance as part of the Canberra International Music Festival.
Sun 4 May 2025
City News Canberra
Glass exhibition of quiet competence and confidence
She recently spent time in Japan, and was particularly intrigued by the patterns in old Japanese village buildings and tall, new buildings in the cities. She has carved and sanded each and every segment on these complicated forms resulting in calm, peaceful forms.
There is no bravado in this exhibition, just quiet competence and confidence.
Written by Meredith Hinchliffe
May 2025
Artist Profile issue 70
Discovery: Bronte Cormican-Jones
More projects with glass are in the planning for Cormican-Jones with the upcoming exhibition The Glass Skin at Canberra Contemporary and a solo exhibition at Canberra Glassworks’ Smokestack Gallery. Both bodies of work will be influenced by the artist’s recent travels abroad, which provided her the opportunity to absorb international approaches to her craft, and unhurried experiences of global cities vastly different in their organisation and appearance to her own.
Written by Benjamin Clay
Summer 2025
HerCanberra
The Australian War Memorial unveils the first of its new visitor spaces, and it’s the perfect time to take another look
The renovation has incorporated artistic elements that enhance the visitor experience. Look up as you enter the galleries using stunning spiral staircases to see “Quiet Skies. As the sun rises. As the sun sets” – two breathtaking suspended artworks created by internationally renowned Australian glass artist Annette Blair.
15 April 2025
Arts Hub
Glass art speaks to fragile past – major commission at Australian War Memorial
Blair is recognised as one of Australia’s leading glass blowers, with a practice spanning 20 years both making her own work, and gaffing (lead maker) for many of Australia’s top contemporary artists. And yet, this commission marks a major milestone in her career.
Blair’s piece adds to the other powerful new artworks that are part of the rebuild, including the major sculptural commission by Alex Seton unveiled late last year in the grounds of the Memorial.
Written by Gina Fairley
27 Feb 2025
The Canberra Times
‘Exquisite’: a sneak peek at the shimmering glass of the revamped war memorial
The falling leaves sculptures – titled Quiet Skies – have a wow factor but also offer a cause for reflection. They are designed to reflect, in the western installation, the wistful roses and pinks of sunset and, in the eastern location, the brighter hopeful hues of sunrise.
Written by Steve Evans
18 Jan 2025
Arts Hub
Fashion, craft and design calendar 2025
Fashion, craft and design lovers are in for a treat as a plethora of exhibitions and programs showcase the best in contemporary practices across Australia across 2025.
Written by Celina Lei
17 Jan 2025
Kia Ora
Time & Place: In a country littered with golden beaches, iconic rocks and familiar cities, Canberra can get overlooked
Get hands-on – and mouth – at the largest glass-making facility in the southern hemisphere, where even novices can have a go at blowing glass. It’s hot stuff – and they’ll post your finished work of art to you. Check out the exhibitions and guided tour.
Written by Shelley Howells
Feb 2025
Art Guide
Evolving Forms with Gabriella Bisetto
The practice of Adelaide-based glass artist Gabriella Bisetto has been sustained by the enigmatic perplexity of the human body. Growing up on a farm in regional New South Wales, where Bisetto’s family raised and slaughtered their own animals, the artist had an early acquaintance with anatomy and the transitory states of life and death.
Written by Sophia Halloway
Wed 26 Nov 2025
City News
Artist brings a human touch to her exhibition
This is a deeply contemplative exhibition.
Bisetto’s work draws inspiration from the shapes and structures found within the human body – especially the skin. As we age, our bodies change – our skin changes, we accumulate blemishes, our bodies grow, and then shrink. Our bodies become an archive of our lives.
Review by Meredith Hinchliffe
Sun 23 Nov 2025
Her Canberra
More local businesses we love this Christmas: Southside edition
Housed within the historic Kingston Powerhouse, Canberra Glassworks is the largest glassmaking facility in the Southern Hemisphere dedicated to studio glass. The space is an impressive blend of industrial heritage and contemporary design – soaring ceilings, exposed brickwork, and original machinery speak to the building’s early 20th-century origins, while glassmaking studios, galleries and viewing platforms showcase the energy and creativity of a working arts facility.
Fri 21 Nov 2025
Art Collector issue 111
50 Things Collectors Should Know:
Iltja Ntjarra Art Centre
Moving beyond their celebrated watercolour tradition, Iltja Ntjarra Art Centre ventures into glassmaking, marking an ambitious evolution of Albert Namatjira’s artistic legacy.
Written by Althea Kuzman
Jan – Mar 2025
Art Guide
Consuelo Cavaniglia’s tricks of the light
Cavaniglia works out of a sunny studio in an industrial area of Sydney’s inner west but often travels to Canberra Glassworks.
Her recent glass works play with apertures, shadows, reflections and transparencies. Nothing is fixed, and how you experience things depends on where you stand. Her current exhibition takes this idea even further, leading viewers to consider their relationship to the museum as well.
Written by Jane O’Sullivan
27 Jan 2025
ABC Radio National
The Music Show: Glass percussion with Shock Lines
Working with sound designer and composer Natasha Dubler and glass artist Caitlin Dubler, percussionist Niki Johnson explores all the different sounds and textures you can get out of glass. We meet the trio at Canberra Glassworks where they’re doing a site-specific performance as part of the Canberra International Music Festival.
Sun 4 May 2025
City News Canberra
Glass exhibition of quiet competence and confidence
She recently spent time in Japan, and was particularly intrigued by the patterns in old Japanese village buildings and tall, new buildings in the cities. She has carved and sanded each and every segment on these complicated forms resulting in calm, peaceful forms.
There is no bravado in this exhibition, just quiet competence and confidence.
Written by Meredith Hinchliffe
May 2025
Artist Profile issue 70
Discovery: Bronte Cormican-Jones
More projects with glass are in the planning for Cormican-Jones with the upcoming exhibition The Glass Skin at Canberra Contemporary and a solo exhibition at Canberra Glassworks’ Smokestack Gallery. Both bodies of work will be influenced by the artist’s recent travels abroad, which provided her the opportunity to absorb international approaches to her craft, and unhurried experiences of global cities vastly different in their organisation and appearance to her own.
Written by Benjamin Clay
Summer 2025
HerCanberra
The Australian War Memorial unveils the first of its new visitor spaces, and it’s the perfect time to take another look
The renovation has incorporated artistic elements that enhance the visitor experience. Look up as you enter the galleries using stunning spiral staircases to see “Quiet Skies. As the sun rises. As the sun sets” – two breathtaking suspended artworks created by internationally renowned Australian glass artist Annette Blair.
15 April 2025
Arts Hub
Glass art speaks to fragile past – major commission at Australian War Memorial
Blair is recognised as one of Australia’s leading glass blowers, with a practice spanning 20 years both making her own work, and gaffing (lead maker) for many of Australia’s top contemporary artists. And yet, this commission marks a major milestone in her career.
Blair’s piece adds to the other powerful new artworks that are part of the rebuild, including the major sculptural commission by Alex Seton unveiled late last year in the grounds of the Memorial.
Written by Gina Fairley
27 Feb 2025
The Canberra Times
‘Exquisite’: a sneak peek at the shimmering glass of the revamped war memorial
The falling leaves sculptures – titled Quiet Skies – have a wow factor but also offer a cause for reflection. They are designed to reflect, in the western installation, the wistful roses and pinks of sunset and, in the eastern location, the brighter hopeful hues of sunrise.
Written by Steve Evans
18 Jan 2025
Arts Hub
Fashion, craft and design calendar 2025
Fashion, craft and design lovers are in for a treat as a plethora of exhibitions and programs showcase the best in contemporary practices across Australia across 2025.
Written by Celina Lei
17 Jan 2025
Kia Ora
Time & Place: In a country littered with golden beaches, iconic rocks and familiar cities, Canberra can get overlooked
Get hands-on – and mouth – at the largest glass-making facility in the southern hemisphere, where even novices can have a go at blowing glass. It’s hot stuff – and they’ll post your finished work of art to you. Check out the exhibitions and guided tour.
Written by Shelley Howells
Feb 2025
The Canberra Times introducing 30 Canberrans under 30 making waves in their fields
ABC Canberra Radio New Australian War Memorial entrance unveiled
Art Guide Jennifer Kemarre Martiniello’s Glass Act
Australian Traveller 9 fascinating ways to experience the Australian War Memorial
Australian War Memorial Glass sculptural installation by local artist, Annette Blair
Australian War Memorial Prime Minister opens Australian War Memorial entrance ‘for all’
Broadsheet A Giant Oculus and Floating Glass Sculptures: What’s New at the Australian War Memorial
City News Canberra Curtain up on June’s national wine festival
City News Canberra Paraphernalia that explores form and feeling
City News Canberra If the earth could sing, this is its song
City News Canberra Fragile Music (cover story)
City News Canberra Glass exhibition of quiet competence and confidence
Epicure Head To Canberra This Autumn For A Delicious Gourmet Trail
Riot Act The ‘spirit of Australians’ showcased in new artwork at the Australian War Memorial
Sydney Morning Herald Canberra’s newest (and priciest) attraction stops traffic, literally
The Senior Ultimate guide to entertaining the grandkids without breaking the bank
Insider Guides From National Treasures to Local Gigs: Canberra’s Culture for Students
The Gin Guild From Bottle to Beauty – A Sustainable Second Life for Bombay Sapphire Bottles
2024 Highlights in the Media
Australian Design Review
Elliat Rich’s ‘Mythica Ignota’ exhibition opens at Canberra Glassworks
Alice Springs designer Elliat Rich is showcasing a collection of new design pieces at Canberra Glassworks from now until December.
Her solo exhibition at the ACT arts centre, titled ‘Mythica Ignota: Artefacts of the Oscillocene and the Warawana Mythologies’, is a rare chance to be immersed in the vision of the award-winning multidisciplinary designer – whose work spans furniture, lighting and bespoke objects – before her showcase at Melbourne Design Week in 2025.
Written by Sophie Berrill
7 Oct 2024
Arena Magazine issue 20
Summer issue | Home and the World
Jeffrey Sarmiento features on the cover of Arena’s Home and the World issue.
The issue analyses social and cultural disruptions at home and abroad including Trump and the crisis of progressivism. We look at the questions posed by migration for settler colonial societies, the future of independent politics in Australia, life in the suburban fringeworlds at the edge of Australian cities, and how bushfire management threatens the future of our forests.
Editor by Simon Cooper
December 2024
The Saturday Paper
Exhibition Review: Mythica Ignota at Canberra Glassworks
The designed objects in Elliat Rich’s Canberra Glassworks exhbition, Mythca Ignota, are inspired by ancient stories, and offer optimistic ways of viewing a damaged world.
A far cry from the ‘another chair’ crowd, Elliat Rich has created an exhibition of objects brimming with ideas, complete with their own mythologies, characters and stories.
Written by Penny Craswell, arts and design writer and editor
19 Oct 2024
Her Canberra
HerCanberra’s Christmas Gift Guide 2024
Local chocolate advent calendars, fashion, homewares, jewellery and more – here’s part 1 of HerCanberra’s Christmas Gift Guide 2024
Canberra landmark King O’Malleys has teamed up with Canberra Glassworks to reinvent Bombay Sapphire’s iconic blue gin bottle: The Sapphire Vase. This new and uniquely Canberran vase is a one-of-a-kind result of an upcycled project that has been mould-blown in the Glassworks Hotshop and shows off the original gin embossing.
21 November 2024
Australian Financial Review
The Allure of Collectable Glass
Have we reached peak ceramic? This designer is a forging a new path with glass.
“I’d been working with ceramic for some time, and was loving it,” saysdesigner Martyn Thompson, “but I feel like ceramic has become incrediblypopular. So, glass offered me the possibility to experiment and shift the conversation somewhat.”
Written by Stephen Todd Design Editor
14 Mar 2024
Arts/Edit issue 39
Artist Profile: Robert Fielding
Mimili man and multi-media artist Robert Fielding lives and breathes art, even when he’s dreaming. With the blessing of his community Elders, he keeps their stories alive through his contemporary and experimental practice. Now, as Canberra Glassworks’ artist-in-residence, he is turning his hand to glass.
Written by Zali Morgan
Art Monthly Australasia
Exhibition review of ‘Robert Fielding: NYARU’
Robert Fielding’s exhibition ‘NYARU’ at the Canberra Glassworks is a powerful showcase of culture, innovation and reclamation. Fielding is a celebrated multi-disciplinary artist of Pakistani, Afghan, Western Arrernte and Yankunytjatjara heritage and lives in the Mimili Community in the remote Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands in South Australia.
Written by Tina Baum, Gulumirrgin (Larrakia)/Wardaman/Karajarri, Senior Curator, First Nations Art at the National Gallery of Australia.
18 Jul 2024
Australian Financial Review
BEST IN GLASS: Ultra-luxe pyjamas, Wedgwood dog bowls and other unexpected delights
Tidying up in his Canberra pub King O’Malley’s one night, Peter Barclay’s appreciation for the colour of an empty Bombay Sapphire gin bottle led to a lightbulb moment. Why not upcycle it into a vase? Jacqueline Knight of Canberra Glassworks and glassblower Katie-Anne Houghton agreed to give it a go, designing a steel mould that not only softens the gin bottles into octagon shapes but retains their unique hue and original embossing. Sapphire vase, $220, with all proceeds going to the Glassworks and its artists.
2 August 2024
Australian Arts Review
Winners of prestigious 2024 FUSE Glass Prize announced
Canberra Glassworks and Adelaide’s JamFactory have announced the winners of the 2024 FUSE Glass Prize.
Originally from the ACT, Moore is based in Adelaide, SA, working in blown glass between JamFactory, University of SA as Adjunct Research Fellow, and his home studio. His recent touring exhibition, JamFactory ICON Tom Moore: Abundant Wonder, was shown at Canberra Museum and Gallery late 2022.
15 May 2024
Riotact
Emerging Canberra glass artist cracks it with prestigious national award
Emeirely Nucifora-Ryan said her award-winning work, Processed, took more than seven months to create. She made the piece using a collection of glass tubing all made by hand, bending them to create a series of circular tubes which she filled with an inert gas. She worked in her home studio as well as using the facilities of the Canberra Glassworks.
Emeirely, an honours graduate of the Australian National University School of Art and Design, created her artistic practice in neon after she participated in Canberra Glassworks Neon Green Futures Masterclass with Richard Wheater.
18 May 2024
Arena #18 Reconsituting Politics ft Rosalind Lemoh exhibition: TOLD.RETOLD.UNTOLD.
Art Almanac preview of Rosalind Lemoh exhibition
Art Guide review of Hanging by a Thread: Mosaics for Afghan Women
Art Review Tamara Henderson: Sentinel to Nature
ArtsHub review of Nicholas Burridge exhibition
Riot Act Introducing The Canberra Biennial – everything you love about Contour 556, and then some
Riot Act Artist powered by neon to help tell nation’s audio-visual stories
Riot Act Don’t miss these final activations of the Canberra Art Biennial
2023 Highlights in the Media
Australian Financial Review
Why glass is the material of the moment in homewares
Alchemist Ben Edols has produced a series of exquisite works for Sydney interior designer Alexandra Kidd’s inaugural Prima collection.
Says Frodsham: “We’re in the business of creating beauty out of the mostrudimentary materials, whether that be sand at the very beginning of theprocess or waste glass as we put it back into the economy.”
Written by Stephen Todd Design Editor
11 November 2023
ArtsHub
Do we still value skill in arts education?
In the wake of years of deskilling in art schools and eroding TAFE offerings, where does skill sit today?
An exhibition that celebrates skill, above all other concerns, is Canberra Glassworks’ Aventurine Spirit, by the organisation’s Technical Director, artist Tom Rowney.
Written by Gina Fairley, ArtsHub’s National Visual Arts Editor of Australia
18 Apr 2023
Art Collector
Quiet work makes a statement at Vicki Torr International Year of Glass Prize
The Vicki Torr International Year of Glass Prize, presented by Canberra Glassworks and AUSGLASS, has been won by local artist Annette Blair for her work A Quiet Afternoon in May 2022. The artist was also presented with the People’s Choice Prize for the same work.
‘This piece shows Annette Blair’s technical brilliance in hot glass sculpting, surface treatment, scale, and conceptual rigour. It is so wonderful that Annette is based in Canberra, her skills place her on an international level’.
Written by Erin Irwin
10 Feb 2023
Artist Profile issue 62
Mel Douglas
The glass scene in Australia is rumbling, swelling. A jolt of new energy pulses through its crystalline veins as many contemporary artists are starting to think more about glass as an accessible, experimental material.
Mel Douglas has been at the forefront of this glass scene for almost three decades. Working out of the Canberra Glassworks – a studio that has piloted innovations in Australian glassmaking – her practice explores the flexibility of glass as a material for drawing and mark-making, stretching the boundaries of what drawing is, and what it can be.
Written by Elli Walsh
Art Collector
Melbourne Design Fair set to turn heads this May
Melbourne Design Week’s main event, the Melbourne Design Fair, looks to be even bigger and better in its second year.
Other highlights include presentations from the Australian Tapestry Workshop, JamFactory, Canberra Glassworks, Yarrenyty Arltere Artists from the Northern Territory presented by Agency, and Design Tasmania.
Written by Erin Irwin
20 Mar 2023