KIRSTIE REA
Tending Light Fields
A Twenty Year Survey
KIRSTIE REA
Tending Light Fields A Twenty Year Survey
24 October – 25 November 2018
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or information retrieval systems without prior permission in writing from the publisher. All photographs by David Paterson, Dorian Photographics unless noted otherwise. © 2018 Northern Rivers Community Gallery (NRCG), Ballina Shire Council Copyright for the text in this publication is held by NRCG and the artist. Curator | Lee Mathers, Gallery Coordinator, NRCG Catalogue Design: NRCG Printing: Lismore City Printery, Lismore ISBN | 978-0-646-99563-2 Northern Rivers Community Gallery (NRCG) 44 Cherry Street Ballina NSW 2478 www.nrcgballina.com.au Northern Rivers Community Gallery is a communicty facility of Ballina Shire Council.
COVER IMAGE
Change 2016 kiln formed glass, rake 10.5 x 29.5 x 7 cm 32 x 31 x 60 cm LEFT IMAGE: Artist’s studio, Pialigo, ACT
CONTENTS Curator’s Introduction | Lee Mathers
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Artist Biography
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Selected Works
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Artist Essay | Kirstie Rea
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Artist’s Resume
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Acknowledgements
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References
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Landscape with Shed 1998 fused and blown glass, engraved aluminium 10.5 x 29.5 x 7 cm
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INTRODUCTION Kirstie Rea, Tending Light Fields – A 20 Year Survey is a curated selection of works from Canberra based artist, Kirstie Rea, an exciting exhibition showcasing the works from one of Australia’s most celebrated artists working in glass. The works included in the show provide a condensed snapshot of how Rea’s visual language has developed and strengthened over time to an eloquent mastery of capturing the intangible aspects of human connection and experience of place to the natural world. The Northern Rivers region is a nature’s wonderland, Bundjalung country of the local Nyangbul people, abundant with beautiful rainforest, rich agricultural lands and a world renowned turquoise coastline. Not surprisingly, there is an intrinsic relationship and fascination with local audiences and the land. In acknowledgement and celebration of this fascination, the Northern Rivers Community Gallery (NRCG) is thrilled to present this special exhibition as a unique perspective to the landscape genre for local audiences to experience. Using light as a highly articulated language and glass as a medium to capture and translate her experience of being in, and sense of belonging to the land, Rea creates breathtaking sculptural works that reference complex layers of personal, colonial and social histories in relation to place and the landscape. For Rea, a country girl at heart, who grew up in Canberra, spending time in the landscape… time for stillness, listening, observing and exploring are central aspects within her arts practice. Rea, in explaining this aspect of her creative process refers to John Muir, an early advocate for the preservation of wilderness, known as the “grandfather of national parks”, when he explains the experience of being in the landscape, “going out was really going in”. This notion of being with the land and allowing immersion of place, where time ceases to be linear and senses are triggered, a place not merely of an observer but being intimately connected to place reverberate throughout the highly evocative works of Rea. We are so excited and humbled to present, Kirstie Rea, Tending Light Fields – A Twenty Year Survey exhibition at NRCG, the first contemporary glass exhibition of its kind to be showcased in the Northern Rivers region and look forward to introducing local audiences to the stunning works of Kirstie Rea. Lee Mathers Curator // Gallery Coordinator, Northern Rivers Community Gallery
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Artist working in coldworking studio, Canberra Glassworks, ACT Photo: Adam McGrath
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KIRSTIE REA // BIOGRAPHY AUSTRALIA Kirstie Rea is a Canberra based artist with a studio practice embedded in contemporary glass. She established her studio after graduating from the Canberra School of Art in 1986 and has continued to develop her practice to become internationally recognised for her works in glass. She has exhibited nationally and internationally and her work is included in collections including the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, National Gallery of Australia, Wagga Wagga National Glass Art Collection and Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung Foundation in Munich, Germany. Kirstie lectured in the Glass Workshop, Australian National University between 1987 - 2003 and was the inaugural Creative Director at the Canberra Glassworks. She has taught in her field of kiln formed glass and cold working techniques across the world since 1987. These teaching venues include Pilchuck Glass School USA, the Corning Studio, USA, Pittsburgh Glass Centre, USA, North Lands Creative Glass in Scotland and Vetroricerca School in Bolzano Italy. Her practice has been recognised by the Ausglass Honorary Life Membership Award (2009), the CAPO Fellow Award (2014) and the Canberra Glassworks Fellowship (2016). From 2003 - 2005 Kirstie served on the Board of Directors for the Glass Art Society (USA) and was closely involved in the organisation and running of three international glass conferences. She also served on the Board of Directors of Ausglass and was a co-chair for the 14th biennial Ausglass conference Open House (2008) and worked on the 18th biennial Ausglass conference (r)evolve in 2017. At the core of her practice lies the desire to seek an understanding of our often tenuous connections to place. Walking in places beyond urban environments, seeking solitude and distance from the everyday, Rea uses her photography and writing to inform her making.
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Knowing 2012 kiln formed glass, chair 91 x 52 x 61 cm (left)
We Always Swam – river, lake, pool 2013 kiln formed glass, towel rail 45 x 88 x 14.5 cm (right)
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ARTIST ESSAY This essay delves into my art practice which is my life by having a closer look at what that is. How and when I end up at the studio and how and why I head away from it. Where I am each day in body and in mind, for making and thinking. In 2017 I celebrated thirty years of my studio in Pialligo, a very small semi-rural orchard suburb on the edge of Canberra. Over the years I have come to spend more worktime outside of the studio and realise the value of this time towards making. As my research reading has expanded and become daily routine, writing has extended from this. It is a tool I use now to develop ideas. I write in the mornings – before the sun is up, before the world around me floods my day. It may be for only twenty minutes but my thoughts then are alive with clarity. If this time is broken with radio, phone or food I lose those thoughts – they quickly become crowded out by the sounds of the everyday. As I write words form images for new work. Words have shape, form and colour beyond their written form. Threads of the same place, the same season, for the same reason remain as ideas underpinning my work over the past thirty years. Some tracks I walk just get deeper, some fade, some return, weaving their way back into my sights but not always my footfall. Solitude and silence from the everyday are essential experiences for me to find a voice for thoughts and for filtering and fermenting ideas. Areas to the south and west of Canberra are where I go. Time spent in these areas is my field research. There is a valley inside Namadgi National Park where I breathe deeply. Gudgenby Valley, in Namadgi National Park is a place I return to, for a frost, for a sunrise, for a few days. Ready Cut cottage in this valley is where I undertook a five week artist residency in 2009 through a wonderful program that Craft ACT Craft and Design Centre run in conjunction with Namadgi National Park. Gudgenby is a valley of layers of history, of bush and boundaries, of loss and vacancy – of change - it is part of the story of Canberra and beyond. It is a place I have known of and visited since childhood, then and now loving the freedom of a day away.
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Reap 2013 kiln formed glass, rake head 160 x 160 x 7 cm
Age and Beauty 1996 hot cast glass, cold worked 11 x 21.5 x 6.5 cm (top)
Southern Skies 1998 hot cast glass, cold worked 12.5 x 28 x 7cm (bottom)
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“ Before it is a conscious spectacle, every landscape is a dream-like experience.* But the dreamy landscape is not a frame filled with impresssions, it is a substance which proliferates (une matiére qui foisonne)
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Gaston Bachelard: L’Eau et les Reves, José Corti, Paris, 1991, p.9 (translation: T. Maloon).
Tree Journal 2007 kiln formed, wheel cut glass 87.5 x 31.5 x 6cm (left)
Winter Gate 2005 kiln formed, engraved glass 23 x 50 x 6 cm artsACT Art Collection (right)
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It is also a valley of rock shelters of Aboriginal painting and implements, of dispossession, of dingoes and wild dogs, of second settler farming and now National Park. It is a place where I attempt to gain an understanding of attachment to place as a non-indigenous Australian. I go alone, I go with close friends, those with knowledge in areas I am not so versed in. The Gudgenby valley as a place has been extremely important to me in focusing, in slowing down, in no longer setting out for the summit but for exploring the way. Scottish author and walker, Nan Shepherd in her brilliant little book The Living Mountain (2011) describes not walking up the mountains (being the Cairngorm mountains of Scotland) but walking into the mountains in the same vein as American, John Muir, father of the national park system, stated that “going out… was really going in”. Concentrating my walking and exploring has not restricted my knowledge but allowed a deepening of it. By focusing in I feel my understanding broaden and encompass so much more. For a time, I wondered if focusing in like this, may make my seeing and thinking become too narrow, even parochial, but have been persuaded not so whilst reading Robert McFarlane’s (2011) introduction to The Living Mountain where he discusses a view of the Irish poet, Patrick Kavanagh. Parochial is the adjectival form of parish and has come to mean insular, a mind turned inward upon itself. But in earlier times ‘the parish was not a perimeter but an aperture, a space through which the world could be seen… the idea that we learn by scrutiny of the close-at-hand’. I wonder has the Gudgenby Valley become my parish. Heading back to exploring the Gudgenby valley is also about getting lost. As well as following tracks into a place physically and mentally, getting lost in it is equally important. I believe, as Rebecca Solnit discusses in her book A Field Guide to Getting Lost, that unless we allow our self to get lost we will never discover anything new. Getting lost doesn’t necessarily mean that you will never find your way out, it can be as simple as letting the familiar fall away. In past times explorers set out for new horizons, they rarely thought of themselves as lost, sure they didn’t know where they were but that was the point of their journey – discovery.
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Fresh Ground 2013 kiln formed glass and found tool 165 x 19 x 21 cm
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So back to the valley. I could discuss the many incredible things I have seen and the experiences had whilst out there, but I’d like to impart a sense of feeling that the artist residency in 2009 offered, an opportunity to ’stay a while’ in the valley and in turn it encouraged ‘return’. To ‘stay a while’ – I specifically don’t use the word settle – it is such a colonial word of ownership, fences and gates, tied up with contested landscapes and responsible for rabbits, weeds, erosion, loss of country, loss of habitat. ‘Staying a while’ speaks of history, of layers, of Aboriginal past, of moths, of gathering and moving on and of return. In 2009 I stayed a while. It was hot, cold, it snowed. Outside I was a sponge, soaking in all I could – by night I wrung that sponge out – I wrote, read and drew, cooked some, filled the hot water bottle and eventually went to bed. The cottage – I like to think of it as a base not a home – a base – the same cottage kit home as Mawson’s Antarctic Hut, a Hudson’s Ready Cut Cottage – shelter, protection, warmth and isolation. Getting out there and the freedom of leaving I have always been drawn to places outside the city and I have always loved solitude so my stay in the valley was easy. Even before I reach the Park boundary things change – the landscape, my thoughts. I’m prepared for out there by the journey there. The soft edge between Canberra and rural ACT, the blur between rural and Park boundary, an old fence, a grid. The valley comes into view, I descend into it, turn right off the main road, turn right through the gate, park, locate the key, dump bedding on the bed, and open the front door. I am here for a while – outside calls. Outside and Distance – the lure of distance, the blue of distance, the longing attached to it, the colour of longing. Distance between blue and the golden side of green. I feel there is clarity in distance so I set off in every direction. Corral 2004 kiln formed , wheel cut glass 17 x 107 x 16 cm
And thinking of clarity of sight these days I have to smile as I age – my eyes see clarity in the distance but not in the near – clarity embedded in distance.
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Solitude I’ve sent you the breeze 2015 kiln formed glass, mailing tube 13 x 120.8 x 12 cm (left)
Paddocks 2013 kiln formed glass, found tools 66 x 265 x 7.5 cm (right)
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Channell 11 2013 kiln formed glass, found tools 9 x 320 x 37 cm
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Jumping forward to April 2015 – a few days in the cottage with friend and print maker, Antonia Aitken. Words from my journal… Today we walked up and over to Rendezvous Creek Valley. It’s a beautiful long frost hollow valley, stretching into the purple blue distance. It’s so Namadgi – black sallees, boulders and wedgetails circling above. We walk, hardly talk, following tracks, sometimes animal sometimes vehicle. We have a destination – up the valley – but the way there is important. I haven’t been up this valley since 1989 – not past the site of Rowely’s Hut – last time we had a break on the steps of the hut. This time on the grass around the burnt remains – bits of skeleton of the hut like the bones of roos lie scattered in the vicinity. Stopping for the break, sustenance, water, longing sets in – my sights on the distance. As we sit the beauty of the day is made even more special by the howls of a dingo – the first since being here this time. Antonia records them. The howls are answered from the east. We probably stay for another hour, I wander, Antonia draws. Back into Gudgenby Valley – from one view point I feel it is a valley of vacancy and loss, from another it’s a place of return but two things that capture my attention and imagination are changing light and movement. Both signal new experience, made possible by ‘’staying a while’’. Movement – in an otherwise still landscape – swift mobilisation of the mob can only mean movement from elsewhere. In 2009 that was often dingoes. Stand still, watch, wait. Then there’s the hunt – fast, tiring, brutal. Later in the day – The hint of a ripple across the surface of the creek – sit still, watch and wait - such an exciting platypus moment - so subtle, quiet and special. Changing light – it’s morning I head out, sun on my back, my shadow leading the way till midday when I rest and my shadow keeps close company. On the journey home I have circled the valley heading back in the same direction that I left in the morning light. Now my shadow trails me, getting longer, deeper, keen to return with the evening. To ‘stay a while’.
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Solitude is important for me. Heading ‘out there’ is not an escape – it’s a place to create distance and allow glimpses into an understanding of my place in it all. Landscape has a memory of us as we do of it. We carve it, colour it and contour it. We are embedded in landscape as it is in us. For many years my work has explored intervention and attachment to place. Drawn to places distant from built environments I continue this exploration. Investigating how we have shaped and marked place and in turn how place shapes our navigation both physically and mentally across it and into it, my work brings together the external and the internal of both body and place. Landscape is not just a skin for form, feature and surface that we so readily attached to a place. Landscape has an inside. Explorations take me deeper under the surface into places and past the seen. My mind moves with the landscape, the body with the terrain. Tracks and traces left by those who have been before still shape and influence my presence and passage, my comfort or discomfort within that place. I need the day to fade to start to digest where I have been as I need the sunrise to try and make sense of yesterday, of memory, of tomorrow. We live under an ocean of air. That ocean has volume, it lives and breathes as we breathe it. It is charged with place, imbued with what lies below, tainted and tinged, tasting of what’s been and what is to come. I ingest it, I digest it, filter and ferment it. That digestion is like a conversation with myself, with my gut, it feeds and nourishes my thinking towards making Early works in this exhibition have a certain sense of immobility to them, they are anchored to place. The space they occupy and their presence seems now attached only to their footprint. My recent works have a sense of fluidity to them – that form is still possibly moving, absorbing elements of place, still evolving or dissolving to occupy space. Making – I have some understanding of what I make but not all the answers to why I make but that is what keeps me making, getting out there, researching, reading and creating.
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The more I know and understand my materials for making the more I feel I can put certain qualities of them aside for another time for another idea. Time ‘in the field’ is crucial for me to gain enough clarity to return to the studio and make, otherwise glass as a material and the processes attached to it can clutter studio time. Distance is interesting as it can be looking forward or looking back. Distance looking back allows a deeper understanding from that perspective. Looking forward it is often the distance of blue, of longing, of the unknown, that author Rebecca Solnit so eloquently writes about. Returning and change I am a local (to the Canberra region), I have travelled and I have returned and always look forward to my return. Why? When and how do we believe in belonging – can we belong somewhere and if so how? Places change – we change – what I am returning to changes. I can enjoy, feel comfortable, can return to and linger in places that I don’t belong to. These are important experiences to help me figure out why I feel attached to other places. Have places such as state and national parks enabled attachment to a degree as they have made place publically available, accessible and therefore knowable where that attachment becomes possible. Looking back, I can now reflect on being shown these places and their value, their differences and distances as a child. It has instilled in me an ongoing inquiry, an appreciation of these places that is supported by a deeper understanding of them. I continue to build and deepen connections to these places. I see my practice now as balancing time between being in and out of the studio and finding a balance between reading, writing and making. After forty years of working as an artist do I have answers for how and why make – no but that’s the exciting thing. Not having all the answers technically, conceptually or about the material glass is what keeps me making. Kirstie Rea October 2018
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The freedom of solitude – caught by the breeze 2015 kiln formed glass, painted MDF box form 70 x 25 x 30 cm (left)
Another Day 2012 kiln formed glass, shelf 11 x 50 x 19 cm (right)
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KIRSTIE REA // RESUME Born Currently
Canberra, ACT, Australia 1955
2004
Instructor, Pittsburgh Glass Center, Pittsburgh, USA; Lecturer, Bullseye Glass Co., Portland, USA; Lecturer, Bullseye Connection Gallery, Portland, USA
2003
Instructor, Master class, North Lands Creative Glass, Scotland, UK
Independent studio artist, Canberra, Australia
Professional Experience – Academic 2011/12
Acting Head of Ceramics and Glass, UniSA, Adelaide, SA, Australia
2011
Visiting artist/ lecturer, Alberta College of Art and Design, Calgary, Canada
2010
Lecturer, Sydney College of the Arts, Sydney University, Sydney, Australia
1987-03
Lecturer, Glass Workshop, School of Art and Design, Australian National University
Board member, Glass Art Society (2003–2005) 2002
Teaching tour, USA and Italy; English Rural Residency, Lincolnshire, UK
2001
Instructor, Wanganui Summer School, New Zealand
2000
Visiting lecturer, Wanganui Summer School, New Zealand; Instructor, Roll-up workshops in the USA and Europe; Artist-in-Residence, Bullseye Glass Co., Portland, USA; Instructor (with Scott Chaseling), Pilchuck Glass School, Stanwood, USA
1999
Studio ARC teaching tour of USA: Portland, USA; Corning Studio, Corning, USA; Urban Glass, Brooklyn, USA; Artist-in-Residence, Wanganui Polytechnic, New Zealand; Coordinator for Latitudes exhibitions, Australia, USA and Japan (1995–1999)
1998
Visiting Artist/Lecturer, Wanganui Polytechnic, New Zealand (1997–1998)
1997
Visiting Artist/Lecturer, University of SA, Jam Factory Craft & Design Centre, Adelaide, Australia; Instructor, Queensland Winter School, Eumundi, Australia; Instructor, Ausglass Conference Workshops, Sydney, Australia
1994
Artist-in-Residence, Bullseye Glass Co., Portland, USA
1993
Artist-in-Residence, Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia
1993
Vice-President and committee member, Ausglass International Conference and Workshops, Canberra, Australia (1991–1993)
1983
Part-time instructor, stained glass, Canberra, Australia
Professional Experience 2017/18
Teaching artist, Canberra Glassworks – ongoing
2017
Teaching, The Studio - Corning Museum of Glass, USA, Bay area Resource Center, Oakland, USA
2016
Creative Fellow Residency, Canberra Glassworks, Canberra, Australia Teaching, Urban Glass, Brooklyn, NY USA; Presenter – Glass Art Society conference, Corning, NY, USA; Presenter and workshop leader – NZ Glass conference, Auckland and Wanganui, New Zealand
2015
2014
Teaching tour USA, Penland School of Craft, NC, Bullseye Resource Centre Santa Fe, NM; Visiting artist, University of Southern Illinois, USA; Co-leader - Fresh Horizons International Symposium, North Lands Creative Glass, Scotland Artist-in-residence, Canberra Glassworks, Canberra, ACT, Australia; Artist-in-residence, Cataract Gorge Cottage, Launceston, Tasmania, Australia; Co-leader – Highland Inspiration, International Symposium, North Lands Creative Glass, Scotland
2013
Faculty, session 4, Pilchuck Glass School, USA; Artist-in-Residence, Museum of Glass, Tacoma, USA
2007/8
Co-chair 14th Ausglass Biennial Conference Open House 08. Canberra, Australia
2006/8
Creative Director, Canberra Glassworks, Canberra, Australia
2008
Instructor, Pilchuck Glass School, Stanwood, USA
2005
Instructor, Pilchuck Glass School, Stanwood, USA; Instructor, Pratt Fine Art, Seattle, USA; Instructor, Urban Glass, Brooklyn, USA; Visiting Artist, Warlayirti Aboriginal Community, Balgo Hills, WA, Australia
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Education/Training 2010
Student, The Studio - Corning Museum of Glass, USA, Jiri Harcuba engraving class
1994
student, Pilchuck Glass School, Stanwood, WA, USA
1993
Attended International Summer School Workshop, Printmaking from Glass Plates, Canberra School of Art, Australia, co-chair, & Vice President Ausglass Conference, Origins and Originality, Canberra Australia
1988
Participant, International Master Workshop in Glass (Kiln formed Techniques), Canberra, Australia
1987
Established studio in Canberra, Australia, TA, Pilchuck Glass School, Stanwood, WA, USA
1986
Bachelor of Arts (Visual), Glass major, School of Art, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
Solo Exhibitions
2012
Bilk on Tour, The Incinerator Gallery, Melbourne + Sydney, Australia
2017
Kirstie Rea – The Land a twenty year survey, Canberra Museum and Gallery, ACT Australia
2011
2016
Interior Terrains, Sabbia Gallery, Sydney, NSW, Australia
2011 All Faculty Exhibition, Alberta College of ART and Design, Calgary, Canada; Elements – Glass, Gallery one Craft ACT, Canberra, Australia; Top Drawer, Masterworks Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand
2013
Of Nurture, Nature and Need, Wagga Wagga Art Gallery, Wagga Wagga, NSW, Australia; Under My Skin, Canberra Glassworks galleries 1 & 2, Canberra, Australia
2008
2012
Described by a Day, Sabbia Gallery, Sydney, Australia; Under a Canadian Sky, Gallery Bilk, Canberra ACT, Australia
In Essence, Sabbia Gallery, Sydney, Australia; Succession, Bullseye Gallery. Portland OR USA; Abstracted Landscape, Society for Arts and Crafts, Boston, USA; Glass Miniatures, Workshop Bilk, Queanbeyan, NSW, Australia; SOFA Chicago
2007
2009
In the Presence of Blue, Sabbia Gallery, Sydney, Australia
Heartland, Imagination Creation Inspiration, Canberra Glassworks, Canberra, Australia; Kirstie Rea, Masterworks Gallery, Auckland NZ
2006
Light — at the Time, D&A Fine Arts, CA, USA
2006
2005
Kirstie Rea, Palette Contemporary Art and Craft, Albuquerque, USA
2004
New Work, Craft ACT Gallery 2, Canberra, Australia; New Light, Bullseye Connection Gallery, Portland, USA
COLLECT 2006, Bullseye Connection Gallery, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK; New Masters: New Glass, Sabbia Gallery, Sydney, Australia; 20 Years On, Ebeltoft Museum, Ebeltoft, Denmark; Glass Miniatures, Workshop Bilk, Queanbeyan NSW, Australia
2005
2002
Kirstie Rea — Studio Glass, Beaver Galleries, Canberra, Australia
2000
Places, Bullseye Connection Gallery, Portland, USA
1999
12 Days — 2 Ways, Quay School of the Art Gallery, Wanganui, New Zealand
1996
Natural Balance, Beaver Galleries, Canberra, Australia
1993
Off the Beaten Track, Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia
Transformations: The language of craft, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia; The Cutting Edge: Cut and engraved glass, Wagga Wagga Art Gallery touring exhibition, Australia; The Next Chapter, Sabbia Gallery, Sydney, Australia; SOFA/Chicago, Bullseye Connection Gallery, Chicago, USA; 20/20: Twenty Artists/Twenty Years, Bullseye Connection Gallery, Portland, USA; San Francisco International Art Exposition 7, Bullseye Connection Gallery, San Francisco, USA
2004
Contemporary Glass: A Moment, Goulburn Regional Art Gallery, Australia; SOFA/Chicago, Bullseye Connection Gallery, Chicago, USA
Selected Group Exhibitions 2018
Studies with Light, Suki and Hugh Gallery, Bungendore, NSW Australia; Walking Matters, Wagga Wagga Art Gallery, NSW, Australia; Genius Loci, Canberra Glassworks Gallery, Canberra, ACT Australia
2003
2017
Sydney Contemporary Art Fair, Sabbia Gallery; Hindmarsh Glass Prize, Canberra Glassworks, ACT, Australia; Lines of Site – finding the sublime in Canberra, M16 Gallery, ACT Australia; Review Masters of Glass 2017 Sabbia Gallery, Sydney, NSW, Australia; Refraction, Beaver Galleries, ACT, Australia; History Repeated, Craft ACT , Canberra, Australia
Legacy, The Bullseye Connection Gallery, Portland, USA; 20/20 Vision, The Museum of American Glass, Wheaton Village, Millville, USA; SOFA/Chicago, Chicago, USA; Hobart Art Prize Exhibition, Hobart, Australia; Ranamok Glass Prize Exhibition, touring exhibition, Australia
2002
2016
Hindmarsh Prize, Canberra Glassworks, ACT, Australia; Tom Malone Prize Art Gallery of WA, Perth, WA Australia; Reflections, Parliament House, Canberra, ACT, Australia
Facets of Australia, Leo Kaplan Modern, New York, USA; SOFA/ Chicago, Chicago, USA; Australian Glass 2002, Masterworks Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand; Trademarks, Craft ACT, Canberra, Australia; Ranamok Glass Prize Exhibition, touring exhibition, Australia
2001
2015
Translucent Shadows, SASA Gallery, University of SA, Adelaide, Australia; Baker’s Dozen, Goulburn Regional Art Gallery, Goulburn, Australia
Cutting Edge, Axia Modern Art, Melbourne, Australia; Desire, Quadrivium Gallery, Sydney, Australia; Ranamok Glass Prize Exhibition, touring exhibition, Australia
2000
2014
Revere, Masters of Glass, Sabbia Gallery, Sydney, Australia; Tree, Canberra Glassworks, Canberra, ACT, Australia
2013
Links: Australian Glass and the Pacific Northwest, Museum of Glass, Tacoma USA; Tom Malone Prize, Art Gallery of WA, Perth, WA, Australia
Canberra Glass 2000, Beaver Galleries, Canberra, Australia; RFC Award Exhibition, Sydney, Australia (touring); Fusion, Axia Modern Art, Melbourne, Australia; Strength to Strength, Craft ACT Gallery, Canberra, Australia; Renwick Alliance Exhibition, Quadrivium Gallery, Sydney, Australia; At the Edge, Brisbane City Gallery, Australia; Object Galleries, Sydney, Australia; Gallery Handwerk, Munich, Germany 29
KIRSTIE REA // RESUME cont. 1999
RFC Glass Award Exhibition, Volvo Gallery, Sydney, Australia; Canberra Glass 1999, Beaver Galleries, Canberra, Australi; Essentially Canberra, SOFA, New York; Chappell Gallery, Boston, USA; Object Galleries, Sydney, Australia; Passion, Quadrivium Gallery, Sydney, Australia; Drawn in Form, Brisbane City Gallery, Object Galleries, Australia; Vitreous II, Craft Queensland Gallery, Qld, Australia; Latitudes II, touring six Australian venues through 1999 and 2000
1991
Canberra Souvenir Show, Canberra Contemporary Art Space, Canberra, Australia; CAPO Annual Art Auction, Canberra, Australia; Appreciating the Medium, Glass Art Gallery, Glebe, Australia; Challenging the Medium, Blaxland Gallery, Sydney, Australia; Ausglass Members Show, St Andrews College, Sydney, Australia; Australian Kilnformed Glass, Habatat Gallery, Miami, USA
1998
Latitudes II, Seto Bank Gallery, Seto, Japan; Bullseye Connection Gallery, Portland, USA; Australian Glass, Gallery Enomoto, Osaka, Japan, ACAF, Melbourne, Australia; Essentially Canberra, Venezia Aperto Vetro 1998, Venice, Italy
1990
Australian Kilnformed Glass, Heller Gallery, New York, USA
1989
1997
ANZAG, International Members Expo, GAS 1997, Tucson, USA; Canberra Glass, Beaver Galleries, Canberra, Australia; Glass, Quadrivium Gallery, Sydney, Australia; Vitreous, Crafts Council of Queensland Gallery, Brisbane, Australi; Australian Glass, Rob van den Doel Gallery, The Hague, Holland
Australian Kilnformed Glass, Kurland/Summers Gallery, Los Angeles, USA; Australian Kilnformed Glass, Habatat Galleries, Detroit, USA; International Pâte de Verre Exhibition, Gallery Bergmann, Germany; Staff Show, Canberra Institute of the Arts, Canberra, Australia
1988
1996
Latitudes, Crafts ACT Gallery, Canberra, Australia; SOFA/Chicago, Chicago, USA; A Matter of Making, CSA Alumni Part II, Canberra School of Art Gallery, Canberra, Australia; Artists Projects, Bullseye Connection Resource Center Gallery, Portland, USA
4th National Studio Glass Exhibition, Wagga City Art Gallery, Wagga Wagga, Australia; ANZ Bank Award Show, Glass Artists Gallery, Glebe, Australia; Kilnformed Glass — an International Exhibition, Craft Council Gallery,Canberra, Australia; Glass from Canberra, Despard Street Gallery, Hobart, Australia
1995
1994
1993
1992
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From the Workshop of Klaus Moje, Canberra School of Art Gallery Foyer, Canberra, Australia; Form and Idea, Goulburn Regional Art Gallery, Goulburn, Australia; Glass Weekend, Creative Glass Center of America, Millville, USA; Latitudes, Part I, Bullseye Connection Gallery, Portland, USA; Latitudes, Part II, Craftspace Gallery, Sydney, Australia; Ausglass Members Exhibition, JamFactory Craft and Design Centre, Adelaide, Australia ACT in the Rocks, CCACT Gallery, Canberra; Craftspace Gallery, Sydney, Australia; Out of Canberra, Contemporary Kiln formed Glass from ACT, JamFactory Craft and Design Centre, Adelaide, Australia; SOFA/Chicago, Chicago, USA; The Collector’s Circle Exhibition (for a touring group of American collectors affiliated with The American Craft Museum, NY), Beaver Galleries, Canberra, Australia Eleven Women Sculptors, Beaver Galleries, Canberra, Australia; Women under Glass, The Door Exhibition Space, Fremantle, Australia; Directions Glass Jewellery, Canberra School of Art Gallery Foyer, Canberra, Australia; Origins and Originality, Ausglass Members Exhibition, Drill Hall Gallery, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia Treed, Canberra Contemporary Art Space, Canberra, Australia; Design Visions, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, Australia; Blundstone Invitation Exhibition, Tasmanian Contemporary Art Space, Hobart, Australia
Selected Collections Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung Foundation, Munich, Germany Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, Australia Canberra Museum and Gallery, Canberra, Australia Ebeltoft Museum, Ebeltoft, Denmark Latrobe Valley Art Centre Collection, Australia Museum of American Glass, Millville, USA National Art Glass Collection, Wagga Wagga Regional Art Gallery, Australia National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia Victoria and Albert Museum Glass Collection, London, UK Victorian State Craft Collection, Victoria, Australia
Awards, Honours and Grants 2018
Finalist, Hindmarsh Prize, Canberra Glassworks, ACT, Australia
2017
Finalist, Hindmarsh Prize, Canberra Glassworks, ACT, Australia
2016
Finalist, Hindmarsh Prize, Canberra Glassworks, ACT, Australia; Finalist - Tom Malone Prize Art Gallery of WA. Perth, WA Australia
2015
Canberra Glassworks Creative Fellowship
2014
Canberra Art Patrons Organisation Fellowship 2015; Canberra Glassworks, artist-in-residence
2013
Museum of Glass, Tacoma, USA, artist-in-residency; Finalist - Tom Malone Prize Art Gallery of WA. Perth, WA Australia
2012
Australia Council New Work Grant
2009
Ausglass Honorary Life Membership Award
2004
artsACT Creative Arts Fellowship
2003
Rosalie Gascoigne Award, Canberra Arts Patrons Organisation
2002
English Rural Residency, Artescape Trust, United Kingdom; Canberra Circle Critics Award, Canberra, Australia
2001
Silver Prize, International Glass Exhibition, Kanazawa, Japan
2000
Vicky Torr Ausglass Award; Canberra Critics Circle Award, Canberra, Australia
1996
1994
Australia Council — Visual Arts and Crafts Board Professional Development Grant; Creative Glass Center of America Fellowship, Millville, USA; Canberra Critics Circle Award, Canberra, Australia CAPO Grant — overseas travel; ANU Stopover Grant — overseas lecturing; Canberra School of Art — Staff Development Grant — overseas travel
1989
ACT Arts Development Fund Grant for workshop development
1988
ACT Arts Development Fund Grant for workshop development
2010
Urban Glass interview, online blog; Hand to Eye, online magazine,
2009
Ready Cut Cottage Residency Catalogue, Craft ACT; Kirstie Rea, Craft Arts International No. 2009
2006
Reflections A Decade of North Lands Creative Glass, pp 50
2005
Australian Glass Today, Margot Osborne, Wakefield Press, 2005
2004
The Scent of Light, The Colour of Air, New Work Kirstie Rea World Sculpture News, Vol 10 Number 2 Spring 2004 Contemporary International Glass, Jennifer Hawkins Opie, V & A Publications, 2004, pp104–05
2003
Masterworks — Decorative and Functional Art, Sally Milner Publishing, pp 132–133 Object, No 42, June 2003, Craft Arts International, 2003 Object, No 38, February 2002
2001
Craft Arts International, No 52, 2001
2000
Mark Bayly, Kirstie Rea – The Land a twenty year survey, Canberra Museum and Gallery, 2017
Bullseye Bulletin, Winter 2000, Glass Art, July/August 2000, Glass, No 78, Spring 2000
1997
Zsuzsi Soboslay, ‘Kirstie Rea: Glass alchemies’, At Monthly, 297, 2017, pp 48-53
Glas en Keramiek, March 1997, Glass, No 68, Fall 1997, Monument, No 17, 1997
1995
Australian Studio Glass, The Movement, its Makers and their Art, Norris Ioannou, 1995
Nola Anderson, ‘Back to the land’, Glass Quarterly No 148, pp 31-37
Brownyn Watson, Public works, The Weekend Australian, 22-23 July 2017
The Canberra Times, 1/25/95 1994
The Canberra Times, 1/12/94
1993
Craftwest, Summer 1993, Neues Glas, 1993
Sally Pryor, ‘Freedom to roam key to brilliance’, Canberra Times, 15 Nov 2014
1992
Glasswork, No 13, 1992
1991
Concepts, Spring 1991
Victoria Hynes, ‘The art of Kirstie Rea’, aAR, Australian Art Review, 38, Mar-Apr 2013, p 14
1988
Craft Australia, March 1988, Craft Australia, February 1988
1987
Craft Australia, January 1987
Links catalogue: Australian Glass and the Pacific Northwest, Museum of Glass, Tacoma USA
1986
Neues Glas, 1986, Craft Australia Year Book, 1986, Craft Australia, January 1986
2015
Matthew Higgins, ‘A brush with wild places’, Canberra Times, 11 July 2015
2014 2013
Art Monthly issue 246, pgs 56-58, On Immersion a note on process and place, Zsuzsi Soboslay; GAAC on line Newsletter; GAS Newsletter, April 2011, Ten Tips for Fusing article
2002
Publications 2017
2011
Glass, The Urban Glass Art Quarterly, No. 130 Spring 2013, pp16 2012
Color Ignited Glass 1962-2012, Toledo Museum of Glass, OH, USA, 2012, pp 169
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Artist in her studio, with Channel 11, Pialigo, ACT
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank everyone at NRCG for making this exhibition possible, especially Lee Mathers, Gallery Coordinator for her dedication to the show, her insightful curating and for her understanding of my work from the past 20 years. Also my thanks to Capital Arts Patrons’ Organisation (CAPO) for the 2014 CAPO Fellowship awarded for creating work for this exhibition and to Canberra Glassworks for the 2016 Creative Fellowship. Both I have greatly appreciated. Gallery Acknowledgements: The Gallery wishes to acknowledge the financial support of Ballina Shire Council which enabled the touring and presentation of this exhibition from Canberra. We would also like to acknowledge and thank our visitors and artist community that support the Gallery through participation and visitation of our annual Gallery programming. Our success is not possible without you. Last but definately not least, the Gallery and staff thank Kirstie Rea’s committment and desire to present this exciting exhibition at Northern Rivers Community Gallery for local audiences.
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Paddocks (detail) 2013 kiln formed glass, found tools 66 x 265 x 7.5 cm
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ARTIST ESSAY // REFERENCES ‘going out….was really going in’: John Muir, journal entry, in John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir, ed. L.M. Wolfe (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Co, 1938), p. 427. MacFarlane, R. (2011) Introduction in ‘The Living Mountain’ by Shepherd, N. Canongate Books, Great Britain, p. XV. Solnit, R. (2006) A Field Guide to Getting Lost, Penguin Books, USA
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