VisitExhibitions2023

Louis Grant, Jessica Murtagh, Madisyn Zabel, Shirley Jianzhen Wu

Net Worth showcases four emerging artists working in glass: Louis Grant, Jessica Murtagh and Madisyn Zabel, Shirley Jianzhen Wu. This exhibition provides a platform for these artists to explore concepts of identity, societal stereotypes, and technology overlayed with history and craftsmanship engrained in glass making. Each provides a unique commentary on today’s expectations of self-worth, perceived worth and financial worth, and how evolving values may guide our future.

Gallery Floor Talk: Saturday 18 February 2023 from 2pm
Join us as we learn about the experimentation, ideas and creations behind our current exhibition in this artist led discussion at Canberra Glassworks.

Pictured: Shirley Jianzhen Wu, Xíng ?, 2023, flame worked borosilicate glass, Eucalyptus cneorifolia essential oil, sola wood (Aeschynomene aspera), pine, cotton thread, reed, silicone. Photo by Brenton McGeachie for Canberra Glassworks.

Tom Rowney

With a focus on Venetian traditions, Rowney conjures amazing shapes, textures, and patterns, transforming the everyday into objects of desire. Always pushing boundaries, Rowney is well known for his cones, cups, spheres, and bud vases created with stunning colourings including aventurine green and ruby red. With an eye to bling and frippery, Rowney combines classic elements of glass blowing with enchantment and style. Daring form and structured contemporary shapes are embellished with meticulous fine linework and shimmering texture, pushing the functional into a fluid aesthetic.

Curated by Caroline Field

Pictured: Tom Rowney, Bronze Low Form – Tesserae Series (detail), 2022, blown glass. Photo by Adam McGrath.

Lucy Simpson

Yuwaalaraay wirringgaa Lucy Simpson is Creative Director and Principal Designer/Maker behind Gaawaa Miyay, a First Nations design studio inspired by country, relationships and notions of continuity and exchange. This exhibition is a story of materiality and memory which looks to the glassmaking process to record, absorb, reflect and transform its body as a means by which to translate great periods of upheaval and environmental crisis across river landscapes.

The word Baayangalibiyaay loosely translates to having natural balance within the order of all things in the living world; an exploration of people, place + notions of ‘wellbeing’.

Simpson Focuses on a small collection of very old dhanggal, 60-80 years old or more collected from the dry riverbed which had perished along with more than 2 million others in the Murray Darling Basin between 2017 – 2020 at the height of the NSW drought.
The embedding of materials collected from Bundanon and Lighting Ridge sees each individual shell as a recorder of time and place, specifically connected with extreme events of fire and water. With glass ranging from translucent to opaque, black to white, pure to gritty, this subtle yet striking reflection and collection of memory in / of country connects to moments of immense change and comments on ’the body’ (self and country) as holder of experience + trauma.

This body of work acknowledging country, with pieces created in collaboration with and supported by Canberra Glassworks, Bundanon, Powerhouse Museum, Institute of Modern Art (Brisbane) and the Australian Design Centre.

Curated by Aimee Frodsham

Pictured: Lucy Simpson, artist studio, 2022. Photos by A.Gore for DesignFiles.

Zoe Brand

Zoe Brand works from her studio in Majors Creek, just outside Braidwood, on Yuin country. As a contemporary jeweller/artist, she is known for her use of text, often repurposing plastic and reclaimed materials. Her practice reflects an interest in materialism, consumerism, and human behaviour evident not only in her smart wordplay but also in the considered processes and choice of materials.

Curated by Aimee Frodsham

Pictured: Zoe Brand, Try Again, 2023. Photo by Canberra Glassworks.

Lisa Sammut

Lisa Sammut’s practice encompasses sculpture, light, video and installation. Using a wide range of media, her sculptural works engage the audience with their kinetic charm, focusing on providing feelings of joy and optimism, belonging and timelessness.
Sammut’s recent installations have provided a playful arrangement of light and various materials to reveal magical relationships between ordinary things. Reflecting on the universe, her work loops between the earthly and otherworldly, considering both the
beauty in the minute and the vastness of everything. This exhibition will further explore and expend on these concepts.
Lisa Sammut will undertake a Canberra Glassworks residency in early 2023 to realise these works.

Curated by Aimee Frodsham

Pictured: Lisa Sammut, a circular logic (detail), 2023. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Judi Elliott, Drew Spangenberg, April Phillips, Kate Banazi, Ham Darroch and Gibson Karlo

This co-curated group show draws on the visually extravagant design movement that was derived by the Memphis Group. Deeply rooted in 1980s Italian architecture, furniture, poster art and glass, Memphis delivered a bold, loud, and sometimes jarring aesthetic. In partnership with Megalo Print Studio, Canberra Glassworks will deliver an exhibition showcasing artists whose work is playful, geometric, and unashamedly bold.

Curated by Aimee Frodsham & Stephen Payne.

Pictured: Drew Spangenberg

Gabriella Bisetto, Cobi Cockburn, Nadege Desgenetez, Mel Douglas, Rose-Mary Faulkner, Nicholas Folland, Kirstie Rea, Harriet Schwarzrock, Brendan Van Hek and Annie Cattrell (UK)

Launching in Victoria exclusive to Dandenong, Upending Expectations: Contemporary Glass celebrates a diverse range of artists whose experimental, innovative and at times cross-disciplinary practice, utilises glass and its properties of light, transparency and reflection.

Curated by Frances Lindsay AM and produced by Canberra Glassworks, Upending Expectations: Contemporary Glass is scheduled to tour from 2022 to 2024 supported by the Australian Council for the Arts through the Contemporary Touring Initiative.

Walker Street Gallery and Arts Centre Greater Dandenong, Victoria showing from June 2022.

Outback Arts Coonamble, NSW showing 16 March to 26 April 2023.

Pictured: Gabriella Bissetto, Cell Structure 2#, 2021, blown, hot sculpted and chemically bonded glass, mirror, steel. Photo by Eliza Britton for Walker Street Gallery and Arts Centre.