Review by Georgina Coburn
Migrate – 30 Years of Scottish Glass
8 Jul 2009 in Highland, Visual Arts & Crafts
Inverness Museum & Art Gallery, until 5 August 2009, and touring
Farinelli I & II - Carrie Fertig.
THE SCOTTISH Glass Society celebrates its 30th anniversary with Migrate, a touring exhibition showcasing the diversity and artistry of established and emerging glass artists in Scotland.
The show is dedicated to the memory of Dan Klein, honorary president of The Scottish Glass Society, one of the founders and directors of North Lands Creative Glass in Lybster, Caithness and guest juror for the Migrate exhibition. His selection of work is a great tribute to the art form and will hopefully raise further awareness about the quality of Contemporary Scottish Glass and its individual practising artists.
Thirty contributing artists have responded to the theme of migration in diverse and thought-provoking ways, employing a variety of techniques. Blown, cast, engraved, flame-worked, cut, polished and painted, the work on show demonstrates innovative contemporary design, fine craftsmanship and vibrant experimentation.
The ability of artists such as Jeff Zimmer to utilise the light-infused medium in unexpected ways is both inspiring and masterful. Zimmer’s two works, The Space Between Me and You – Deadrise and The Space Between Me and You – Currach are superb examples. The box-like construction of each work creates an almost cinematic experience of space, volume and depth, each subject adrift in a vast seascape of pre-dawn indigo, inky ultramarine and dark emerald. The subtle layering of colour creates density but also in heightened contrast incredible luminosity within each work. Our eye is drawn in by the emergent light from beneath the horizon or trailing into the distance like a wake.
Zimmer works in a tremendously subtle way, the depth of field changing as the viewer moves around the work, allowing our perception to migrate. The vessels represented in each work, one from the New World, the other a reference to Scottish and Irish pilgrimage from the 6th century, link the artist’s personal experience of emigration to a collective transatlantic experience.
Exploration of identity is one of the most fascinating areas of investigation in the show. Keeryong Choi’s Begging Buddha, a series of cast figures arranged on a garish shine and clothed in the “vestment of western culture”, the hoodie, is a thoughtful comment on our 21st century cult of the individual, the question of personal freedom, homelessness and the influence of mass media and advertising on our lives.
While lovers of beautiful, decorative art objects will not be disappointed by this show, equally there is a satisfying engagement with both design and ideas in evidence throughout. To the previously uninitiated, the work reveals the medium of glass as an exciting and dynamic means of human expression.
Carrie Fertig’s Farinelli I & II, four disembodied wings of clear flame-worked glass suspended in the gallery space, move continuously, glinting and spinning on minute shifting currents of air. The interplay of light contributes to the sense of movement in the work and to the elusive, ambiguous nature of the imagery. The way the piece is lit engages shadow with light equally as agents of illumination. The wings do not evoke the freedom of flight, but create a sense of poignant suspension and uncertainty, a beautiful and eloquent comment on humanity.
Kim Bramley’s fused glass triptych Many Ways Home demonstrates an excellent understanding of both colour and abstract composition, utilising fine detail in the form of scored, scratched and cross-hatched drawn marks to articulate the surface. Vivid turquoise and green are further accented by metallic red and pink, bringing the various layers of fusion into brilliant harmony.
Form and colour are finely balanced in Bramley’s work, a quality shared by fellow glass artist Kate Henderson. Henderson’s two pieces, Lost and Found, in dominant green, yellow and blue, are window-framed in black, contrasting the heavy grain and graffiti-like writing with lustrous coloured glass lit from below. The artist’s handwritten reference to her daily life creates another layer of interpretation, coupled with the spiritual / architectural associations of stained glass, illuminating the everyday. The fragmented circular form of the first composition is complete within the second in a restoration of balance and equilibrium.
Migrate offers many more works to be savoured including James Denison-Pender’s intricately engraved L’Ouroboros, Angela Steel’s painterly Copse of regenerative green, and Jessamy Kelly’s finely wrought Wings of blown and diamond-cut glass.
The Scottish Glass Society’s AGM and Migrate Conference will take place at the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh on 31 October 2009 and following its Highland tour the exhibition will travel to Broadford House Glass Museum, Kingswinford, West Midlands, in November 2009.
It is a pleasure to see equal exploration of theme and technique in this showcase exhibition. Although the Scottish Glass Society show is an annual event this is the first time that the exhibition will go on tour, a wonderful opportunity to introduce new audiences to the beauty and dynamism of glass and further raise the profile of the medium.
Migrate can be seen at the St Fergus Gallery, Wick, from 8 August until 12 September 2009, and the Iona Gallery, Kingussie, from 19 September until 17 October 2009
