Six Decades in Reflection PE TE R M INSO N
26 October 2019 - 16 February 2020
Six Decades in Reflection highlights Peter Minson’s conceptual brilliance and mastery of lampworked glass. This exhibition showcases his expertise over the physical process of making and lack of boundaries glass allows. Peter’s gift has always been the ability to dream of shape and colour and realise them under the intense heat of lampworking whilst continually improving his aesthetic and technical skills.
He also discovered that “Australian glass artists are equal to those overseas and in some ways are producing more innovative and creative work than those overseas. We do not lack originality in this country and it is only the distance we are separated by that limits a greater impact on the overseas market. The main lesson learnt [is that] we need to promote ourselves better overseas”.
Peter is acknowledged as a master of his craft as a lampworker. His highly successful career in glass began with an apprenticeship in his family’s scientific glass blowing studio that has evolved to the creation of his own world recognised art.
Peter’s artworks show off the limitless flexibility of the glass art medium. His gift is the ability to produce everyday objects alongside the more complex and whimsical items emerging from machines rather than from hands using a gas torch.
Peter Minson ventured into furnace work in 1970 and continued through to 1985. During this time Minson was invited to study furnace glassblowing at the Orrefors Glass School in Sweden and gained confidence in his skills and artistic creativity that has carried him through to his current art practice. In 1995, Peter was awarded the Churchill Fellowship which took him to the United States and Europe to study glass lampworking in depth and to improve his aesthetic and technical knowledge.
“I am continually seduced by the properties of Glass. Bright shining and hard when cold; completely transformed when hot and molten’, noting that ‘to be able to dream of shapes and colours and see them appear as if by magic under intense heat and in my hands would have to be the ultimate in job satisfaction”. Working with glass is Peter’s obsession and his practice shows the seemingly endless forms lampworked glass can produce.
Cover image: Peter Minson, And life begins II 1982, free-blown glass. Donated by Mr and Mrs R. Heatley, National Art Glass Collection 1983.010. Opposite page: Peter Minson, Whistling Ducks 2015, lampworked borosilicate glass. Purchase funded by Wagga Wagga City Council, National Art Glass Collection 2015.010 a-c.
Peter Minson can produce not only multiples but oneoff pieces which embody a certain fluidity and relaxedness rather than that characteristic stiffness of a piece that has been laboured and overwrought. If you watch Peter in action with a spindle you will see that he juggles the glass hot and almost effortlessly without undue fear or attachment. His phenomenological engagement in the process is total but relaxed. Hence the glass always seems to go where he wants it to. Many of Australia’s glass artists have learned from his lessons or simply by watching his public demonstrations. Mark Eliott
National Art Glass Gallery Civic Centre, Cnr Baylis & Morrow Streets Wagga Wagga NSW 2650 P 02 6926 9660 E gallery@wagga.nsw.gov.au Tuesday – Saturday, 10am – 4pm Sunday, 10am – 2pm
Wagga Wagga Art Gallery is a cultural facility of Wagga Wagga City Council
wagga.nsw.gov.au/gallery