On the Edge reviewed by Dan Klein

2009 Dan Klein:

"On the Edge at Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum was an unexpected pleasure.
Reading about it beforehand I wondered about the real need for an exhibition whose aim was to strengthen links between glass artists in the South West of England and Ireland. But the commitment to an idea by passionate curators is half the battle. The idea for the exhibition was born out of a chance meeting between two artists in glass, Mary Mackey from Ireland and Chinks Grylls from Somerset: ‘sitting together on a long journey, talking about glass we discovered an empathy and understanding that surprised and
delighted us.’ Chinks Grylls, whose work is already in the collection of the Cheltenham Art Gallery, approached Sophia Wilson, the Exhibitions Manager there. She agreed to the idea, helped to choose work and installed the exhibition in a simple small gallery with white painted walls on the ground floor. It was well set out, with the work of 21 artists given ample space to
breathe. The exhibition has proved popular. The main reaction from visitors,
according to Sophia Wilson, has been that they had no idea that glass was
capable of such a variety of expression.

Technically speaking the exhibition includes many ways of making glass, from casting, to blowing, to painting and sandblasting, engraving, mirroring, fusing and mixed media including concrete, textile and knitted wire. The objects had been well chosen and included the work of both established and emerging artists. Colin Reid is a real Master of lost wax casting, his piece
Cello (2006) ample proof of that. Fiaz Elson, who for a long time worked in
his studio, uses the same kind of technique where the main players are
hard-edged forms and radiant inner light. Sally Fawkes who, like Colin Reid, also works in Gloucestershire, delivers what she refers to as ‘layers of visual information’ in an arresting piece where casting is combined with polishing, engraving, mirroring and painting. Another who uses the cast glass technique is Joseph Harrington whose aim is to ‘harness movement and
transience within the fluid yet permanent nature of glass.’ Suzannah Vaughan
very successfully combines blue kiln-cast crystal and polished stark white
concrete in pieces that hint at imagined architecture. Will Shakespeare has
gone the extra mile with Low Tide Quins, a wall piece in hot cast soda glass
with added colours and inserts that works well within the parameters of flat
art. It is good to see somebody who makes his living from production-blown
glassware create such a strong imagery in a unique piece.

Five other glass-blowers include Róisin de Buitléair who has used the ancient Venetian reticello technique to create Catch a Breath, a delightful oversize glass butterfly net that is something of a show stopper. It hangs there waiting for butterflies as much as for anything real or imagined that crosses its path. One of the youngest artists in the show is Emmy-Gai Palmer
whose pieces are made of knitted wire encased in blown glass. ‘The net inclusions are knitted following family traditions; with each stitch, heart-warming memories find their way into my work.’ A genuine feeling of commitment to craft here raises it beyond the modest claims made by the artist.

Sean Campbell is one of a growing number of artists who works in kiln-formed
glass. His piece Moment is a lively wall panel, like a large coloured sketch, in which a sheet of glass fused in a kiln with coloured powders and frits has been broken and re-fired between slightly iridescent glass panels. Among the other mixed-media pieces Susan Kinley’s Channel seamlessly combines printed glass strips, layered silk and stainless-steel gauze, in a
piece suspended on wire and floating in space. The whole is much more than
the sum of its parts.

Reviewing an exhibition of this kind one almost cannot help dividing the work into technical categories, but that also gives entirely the wrong impression of what this collection of work is about. Despite the efforts of museums, galleries and the many gifted artists in glass around the world, developments in the expressive potential of contemporary glass are very
recent indeed. Apart from a slowly growing handful of devotees, only very
few realise how closely glass creation can relate to landscape, to nature,
to poetry, to the whole spectrum of artistic invention. The exhibition is
not about technique, but about the way in which a well-chosen body of glass
in all its different forms can be a touching and enriching experience.

Touring to Swansea’s National Waterfront Museum, 5 April – 31 May, and National Craft Gallery Kilkenny, 16 January – 3 April 2010"

Klein, D. "On the Edge: Contemporary Glass from Ireland and South West England Cheltenham Art Gallery." Crafts Magazine reviews. website accessed July 19, 2009. http://www.craftscouncil.org.uk/crafts-magazine/reviews/view/2009/on-the-edge-contemporary-glass-from?from=/crafts-magazine/reviews/