Exhibition’s curator Sarah Bond at the exhibition

Nhan Dan Online- Works of internationally renowned Australian glass artists are being displayed in the exhibition ‘White Hot: Contemporary Australian Glass’ in Hanoi.

White Hot unites the works of eight internationally renowned Australian glass artists who are at the forefront of glass practice in Australia.

According to the exhibition’s curator Sarah Bond who is the Visual Arts Manager of Asialink from Australia, while the artistic glass is very common and strong in Australia, it’s still new for some Asian countries. “We want to share with Vietnamese audiences the state of the art glass from Australia and through this, we want to say that with artistic endeavour, we can turn common material into art works.”

Installation art at the exhibition

White Hot highlights the works of eight internationally renowned and celebrated Australian glass artists, reflecting on a moment in time by considering contemporary practitioners who challenge the traditional ideas, methods, and materials of glass making.

Eight artists, including Jessica Loughlin, Janice Vitkovsky, Brenden Scott French, Deirdre Feeney, Itzell Tazzyman, Wendy Fairclough, Tom Moore and Nadège Desgenétez all explore themes of narrative, nostalgia and challenge the notions of what glass can be.

They demonstrate that whether it is expertly blown, meticulously engraved or cast, production work or conceptual art, glass is a major force within the language of contemporary Australian art.

Shift, kiln formed glass by Jessica Loughlin

According to Barbara Mc-Conchie, executive director of Craft ACT: Craft and Design Centre in Canberra, all these artists work within artistic practices that challenge the physical and conceptual limitations of glass. From painterly, narrative approaches to explorations of form that span sculptural installation to new media practices, these artists ensure functionality takes a back seat to the infinite possibilities that glass has to transform our perception.

The blown glass work of Nadège Desgenétez appeals to the viewers sense of touch. In her works shiny buffed surfaces act as a mirror through which Desgenétez explores personal childhood memories. Memories that involve unbreakable familial love, huddled children’s bodies and candy stripes.

Still Life, hand blown and sandblasted glass by Wendy Fairclough

Wendy Fairclough belongs to the still life genre, a field characterised by its rigorous use of symbolism and metaphor. Fairclough weaves yet another dimension into the still life history by arranging her glass objects in a way that asks her audience to consider not only the subject matter but also

a suggested narrative — placing the work firmly in the genre of contemporary art installations.

In her building glass works Deirdre Feeney examines the human psyche through its relationship with architecture. Creating scaled glass models of old, disused, and predominantly industrial architecture, Feeney investigates our associations with architecture and our nostalgia for place.

‘I thought I saw you there again’, glass and digital projection by Deirdre Feeney

By incorporating pristine glass smeared and dribbled with paint, cracked, broken and reassembled, Brenden Scott French successfully transforms the idea of painting, both object and surface. In his graphic depictions of truck engines, French’s works are solid and dominating in their scale as they mould themselves into the wall.

Jessica Loughlin presents subtle, monochromatic wall panels that allude to elements of light, air and water, bringing into being an effortless sense of translucent space. Loughlin’s glass suggests a landscape that continually changes in response to its atmosphere. The colours she employs capture moments of transformation, as light is translated into a solid entity.

Tom Moore looks into a world of stories, a world where truth is more dangerous than fiction.  sense of surreal theatre dominates and Moore instinctively alludes to mythmaking in his glass and animation works. Moore tells stories that at their heart have concerns for the environment and the dangers of industrial colonisation.

Hammergirl and the Weasel, hot joined blown and solid glass, steel scissors and jewellers hammer by Tom Moore

Placing glass alongside a range of disparate materials, Itzell Tazzyman’s sculptural practice references the surreal as a transformative notion. Tazzyman deliberately utilises the materials of the mass-produced and ready-made, uniting both intent and material in a poetic assemblage.

Janice Vitkovsky utilises the murrine glass technique, where coloured tiles are dispersed and arranged through the body of the glass structure. Vitkovsky wants these patterns to draw on our knowledge of the environment — the sunlight and weather, radiance and colour — ensuring our perceptions play a significant role in the viewing of the work.

Multimedia exhibition with projector

The exhibition curator Sarah Bond held that recent years, contemporary Australian glass artists have received unprecedented acclaim in the international arena, however, the focus has been more prevalent in the US and Europe, rather than in Asia. “White Hot celebrates the strength of Australian creative glass practice and industry with this dedicated glass exhibition, the first to be toured by Asialink through Asia, revealing the vibrancy and dynamism current within contemporary glass practice in Australia” said Sarah Bond.

The exhibition, organised by the Embassy of Australia in Hanoi, runs until June 28 at the Vietnam Fine Arts Museum at 66 Nguyen Thai Hoc street.  

D. Thuy and Michael