Tom Malone Prize 2O2O
Introduction
Glass art in Australia has a relatively short history. While glass has been produced here for architectural, home, scientific and other decorative and practical purposes, its use as a platform for expressive art work only took off in the 1970s. Since that time, with studios and workshops spreading over the country, with makers learning and sharing skills, the field has evolved to produce some of our finest artists.
To celebrate and share their work with our visitors, in 2003 the Gallery teamed up with Art Gallery of Western Australia Foundation Governor Elizabeth Malone to establish the Tom Malone Prize. It is an annual, acquisitive prize for Australian glass artists;Broken, each year’s winning entrant is There Will Be More Than Ocean Water 2019 awarded $15,000 and their work becomes part of the State blown and carved glass Art Collection. Since 2018, the Prize has been presented 36 x 42 x 10 cm through the generous support of Art Gallery of Western Australia Foundation Benefactor Sheryl Grimwood.
Ben Edols and Kathy Elliott
Grimwood Malone’s We have very little control of eventsand in our lives orshared passion for glass and the glass community has the lives of the people we love.art Depicting nature in created a significant legacy with works by the country’s best artists in this medium coming its wildest states is a cathartic process and helps the Collection. Winners have been: Nick Mount (2003), to discharge some of theinto feelings of helplessness. This series of work was inspired recurring dreams Jessicaby Loughlin (2004 and 2007), Clare Belfrage (2005 of tidal waves and surging seas; by Benjamin exploring the and 2011), Sewell (2006), Kevin Gordon (2008), imagery there is a shift from fear to awe. Cobi Cockburn (2009 and 2015), Charles Butcher (2009), Deirdre Feeney (2010), Brian Corr (2012), Tom Moore (2013 Photographer: Greg Piper and 2018), Mel Douglas (2014), Gabriella Bisetto (2016), Marc Leib (2017) and Mark Elliot (2019). Beyond this, Grimwood and Malone’s support has provided a strong focal point for the glass community and has allowed the Gallery to ensure a continuing awareness of this medium with our audiences and the larger art world. This year’s short list is the largest yet, a fact that reflects the quality of production in the country right now, as well 2
as its depth and diversity. It features: Kate Baker (NSW), Clare Belfrage (SA), Peter Bowles (TAS), Lisa Cahill (ACT), Mel Douglas (ACT), Benjamin Edols and Kathy Elliott (NSW), Hannah Gason (SA), David Hay (WA), Jessica Loughlin (SA), Nick Mount (SA), Kirstie Rea (ACT), Marc Leib (WA), Jeremy Lepisto (ACT), Jason Sims (SA), and Jarred Wright (Qld). The list also features newcomers to the Prize Gason, Wright and Baker, as well as four previous winners. The 2020 judges were Warren Langley (Sydney-based artist who’s worked with glass and light for 35 years, has exhibited globally and has works held by museums and galleries locally and internationally, was recently awarded “Lifetime Achievement Award, Australian Society of Glass Artists”), Elizabeth Malone and Robert Cook (the Gallery’s Curator of 20th Century Art). They awarded the Prize to Canberra-based artist Mel Douglas; their statement about her work is on page 4. The Gallery would like to congratulate Mel on a work that is both open and experimental, and perfectly resolved; it is a hugely impressive piece that will add enormously to our collection of Australian glass, as well as works in other mediums that explore the nuances of form and light, abstraction and representation. The Gallery also acknowledges and thanks the other 14 short listed artists. Your work is uniformly inspired, possessing all the qualities that makes Australian glass so internationally significant: technical flare, sensitive expressivity, a connection to the place we live in, and the willingness to think and make outside the box. Finally, we offer our heartfelt thanks for the incredible generosity of Sheryl Grimwood for her support of this Prize and the Gallery. Her commitment to the art form, its makers and its future is nothing short of exemplary.
Tom Malone Prize 2020 winner
Mel Douglas Tonal Value, 2019 Judges’ comments While acknowledging a truly stunning short list, we were unanimous in our decision to award the Prize to Mel Douglas for her five-part wall work, Tonal Value. A study in colour, form and transition, balance and counter-balance, it is both subtle and strangely energetic and animated. While a quiet work, it has an undeniable presence as each of the unit’s two overlapping forms gently modulate over the work’s length; moving from light to dark the work seems to shift into presence from absence, or from light to shadow. Tracing the dependencies and interactions of line and volume, it builds on Mel’s previous work in three-dimensional form, most especially her near pitch-black objects that seem to carve out sections from their surrounding space. Composed from a type of printing with glass powder Tonal Value also evidences her commitment to creative experimentation and evolution within the always challenging medium of glass. Elizabeth Malone, Warren Langley, Robert Cook Photographer (above): Mel Douglas Photographer (right): David Paterson 4
Benjamin Edols and Kathy Elliott There Will Be More Than Ocean Water Broken, 2019 blown and carved glass 36 x 42 x 10 cm We have very little control of events in our lives or the lives of the people we love. Depicting nature in its wildest states is a cathartic process and helps to discharge some of the feelings of helplessness. This series of work was inspired by recurring dreams of tidal waves and surging seas; by exploring the imagery there is a shift from fear to awe. Photographer: Greg Piper
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Clare Belfrage Holding Time, Purple Greys, 2019 blown glass with cane drawing, sanded and pumice polished 48 x 34 x 19 cm This piece continues my interest in rhythms and forms from the natural world, and different experiences of time. I’m also looking at the connections between the industry of nature and craft processes, breaking the pattern down to its elements—a stitch—and then building it back up again—a network of surface growth. There is evidence of the passing of time, yet a stillness, a holding of time. Photographer: Pippy Mount
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David Hay Sense of Belonging, 2019 blown overlayed glass, carved and sandblasted 53.5 x 19 x 18 cm A continued exploration of form and Australian landscape imagery. This work depicts an abstract aerial view of an Australian landscape. The image lies within, evoking a sense of being held and nurtured by a form akin to a coolamon. Photographer: Robert Frith Acorn Photography
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Jason Sims Nucleus, 2019 reflective glass, powder coated steel, acrylic and LED lighting 124 x 105 x 56 cm Nucleus is the result of recent studio experiments furthering my exploration into the potential of light and reflection to create simple illusions of space and form. I am most interested in creating work that serves as a vehicle to re-imagine the space encountered—to deconstruct perceived physical limitations—and facilitate a kind of meditative response allowing viewers to interpret the illusion of space/form created as reality. I particularly like working with illusion for its ability to evoke the sublime and its power to interrogate our understanding of the world around us. Photographer: Pippy Mount
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Jeremy Lepisto The Micromovements, 2019 kilnformed and cold worked glass with fabricated and black oxide coated steel 3 units: 28 x 76.2 x 25.4 cm each; 84 x 76.2 x 25.4 cm overall Each shipping container holds an image of a worker and his place of work. The tools they need to activate the space have been removed or are yet to arrive. The separate spaces of each area of employment vertically connect via an internal staircase. The combination of these three containers allude to the micromovements of the individuals, to how their movements impact the global economy and are therefore linked and aligned. However, the more our separate spaces become stacked and connected through our globalised economy, the more interconnected the welfare between the separate sections of our global society will become. Photographer: Rob Little
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Jessica Loughlin receptor of light x, 2019 kilnformed and hand ground glass 43.5 x 61 x 50 cm receptor of light x is about the observation of light. It almost performs as a “tabular rasa� for noticing subtle changes of light throughout the day. The opaline glass behaves in a similar way to light in the sky. Fine molecules in the glass reflect blue light while transmitting the warm spectrum of light. At first glance these pieces may appear white, but on closer inspection the colours appear and slowly change as the light shifts throughout the day. Photographer: Rachel Harris
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Kirstie Rea Still presence IV, 2019 kilnformed glass, painted wood wall construction 117 x 36 x 8 cm I walk to stop, to be still. A fluid stillness that plants my feet. They consider growing roots, a momentary transplant. This work is an abstraction of place, time, light and lines. Pared back but infused with colour drawn from the decorative elements that clothe and place a landscape, it is an abstraction of hills and valleys walked. Seemingly soft, fluid glass form lies within a solid constructed wall structure, this work is part of my ongoing exploration of the sculptural possibilities of a sheet of glass, heat and gravity. Photographer: David Paterson
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Lisa Cahill Beside the Escarpment #4, 2019 kilnformed and enamelled glass 100 x 193 x 2.5 cm Beside the Escarpment #4 pares down my kilnformed glass to create a minimal vignette evoking notions of an ephemeral landscape. Inspired by both the natural world and the transitory nature of the human existence, my dreamlike images allow viewers to draw associations with their own remembered landscapes, resulting in a meditative and emotional response. Rather than a direct reproduction they are my own interpretation of light and landscape. Photographer: Greg Piper
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Mel Douglas Tonal Value, 2019 [detail] glass on paper 5 units: 71 x 71 cm each Objects and drawings are often thought of as two separate entities. My work explores and interweaves the creative possibilities of this liminal space, where the form is not just a support for drawing, but a threedimensional drawing itself. Using the unique qualities of the material, and the rich potential of mark making on and with glass, I am using line to inform, define and enable three-dimensional space. Photographer: David Paterson
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Nick Mount Noble Fruit with Antigua, 2019 blown glass, murrini, Zanfirico cane, surface worked, carved, polished, assembled, Huon stem 2 units: 32 x 17 x 17 cm; 13 x 40 x 17 cm Noble Fruit with Antigua is part of a series of sculptural compositions that refer to the traditions of Still Life. I work with the graphic surface imagery of the formal structure and geometry that is essential to, but so well disguised by, the natural softness of organic forms. The blown forms are constructed with the ancient Venetian technique of Murrini and Zanfirico. The carved Huon stem works towards the narrative and the “soft geometry� of the composition. Hot glass is a splendid, sumptuous material to sweet talk into a cornucopian tableau. Celebration, gratitude and abundance. Photographer: Pippy Mount
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Peter Bowles Merletto Piegato—Folded Lace [from the series Lines of Inquiry], 2019 blown glass with canework filigree and encalmo, cut and polished surface 21 x 21 x 15 mm Informed by the examination of and reinterpretation of classical European traditions and the ingenuity and inventiveness of early Venetian glassmaking, my work explores qualities of line, pattern and form. This, my latest work, is the next expression, and the new beginning of an old conversation that has threaded its way throughout my glassmaking practice. At the heart of this piece is an exploration of the innate quality of glass to stretch to the finest of threads. These fine threads are gathered, tacked, rolled and folded to create a complex pattern of entwined lacework or filigree. Photographer: Peter Bowles
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Jarred Wright Shadowchrome, 2019 hand blown smokey black glass and silver nitrate mirroring 20 x 30 x 15 cm Shadowchrome: An exploration of form and surface manipulation. It is a handblown dark grey glass and internally silver coated vessel. It is symmetrical like a shadow that mirrors the object casting it. Its surface is reflective which could be considered another form of symmetry. The ambiguous shape is strange yet familiar, slightly—turning in space. Intended to mimic a Rorschach ink image, engaging the viewer with a subconscious internal reflection while reflecting the viewer themselves. Photographer: Jarred Wright
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Hannah Gason Drift, 2019 kilnformed glass 96 x 48 x 1 cm As I move through the soft evening light, a mess of entangled marks start to disperse. In this space, complexity starts to feel very far away. My focus turns to the rhythm of repetition, shifting colour and fading noise. Clusters of jarring, jumbled marks held tight, slowly become unstuck. Informed by abstraction and mapping, Drift is made up of multiple fragments, reflecting differing views and perspectives I encounter as the day draws to a close. Shifting colours of the sky capture my attention and calms. Air touches my skin, it is quiet, and the build-up of daily thoughts drift away. Photographer: David Paterson
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Kate Baker Between Intimacy and Trespass #3, 2019 hand and digitally printed silver mirror 100 x 120 x 3 cm Between Intimacy and Trespass is my most recent body of work and has grown out of an ongoing investigation into the ethereal figure within abstracted space and the potential for this exploration to create emotional and psychological environments in which the viewer can be transported both visually and viscerally. The mirrored surface allows the work to have both depth and reflection, inviting the viewer to enter into the work whilst also moving beyond the surface of the form. Photographer: Brenton McGeachie
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Marc Leib Serenity, 2019 kilnformed glass, cold worked and polished 53 x 40 x 55 cm Background noise of the past, present and future, dissipate into a transfixed gaze across the horizon. Feathery clouds dancing with the icy landscape below, surrender into tranquil bliss of newfound serenity, giving way to silence. Photographer: Graham Hall
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Ben Edols and Kathy Elliott There Will Be More Than Ocean Water Broken, 2019 blown and carved glass 36 x 42 x 10 cm
Tom Malone Prize 2O2O We have very little control of events in our lives or the lives of the people we love. Depicting nature in its wildest states is a cathartic process and helps to discharge some of the feelings of helplessness. This series of work was inspired by recurring dreams of tidal waves and surging seas; by exploring the imagery there is a shift from fear to awe. Photographer: Greg Piper
Cover Benjamin Edols and Kathy Elliott There Will Be More Than Ocean Water Broken, 2019 [detail] blown and carved glass 36 x 42 x 10 cm 36