Artist Tim Edwards has received the distinguished Tom Malone prize for Australian glass artwork with a piece that performs tips with the viewer’s eye.
The profitable work, titled Ellipse #8, is a luminous blue kind 47cm tall and from some angles it's troublesome to inform whether or not the glass is two- or three-dimensional. The piece is 3D however not very thick with a depth of simply 8mm.
“I’m fascinated with notion, deception, and that space between 2D and 3D. Somebody coined the time period two-and-a-half dimensional, which I like,” the artist mentioned.
It took about two hours to blow the piece with the assistance of assistants on the furnaces in Adelaide’s JamFactory. Edwards then spent one other 35 hours in his residence studio grinding excellent ovals out of the glass utilizing high-end German stone and diamond instruments.
The glass doesn’t break throughout this course of, he mentioned, as a result of it’s cooled with water and glass is more durable than one may anticipate.
“It’s brittle, nevertheless it’s truly very, very robust ... it’s strong sufficient that you just’re not going to interrupt it,” he mentioned.
Primarily based in South Australia, Edwards started as a ceramicist earlier than switching to glass and a profession that has taken him everywhere in the world, together with a fee on the Corning Museum of Glass within the US.
He worries that funding cuts have left college glass artwork coaching in a miserable state, however mentioned the JamFactory studio was “going gangbusters” and the abilities developed there have been very important for Australian glass artwork.
Skilled-level glass in Australia is powerful, in response to Edwards, with gross sales increasing properly past craft-based galleries.
He believes curiosity in glass blowing from outstanding up to date artists corresponding to Patricia Piccinini and Tony Albert will result in extra consideration for the medium.
“We’re in a superb place and I believe we’re going to hit a very good course within the subsequent 5 to 10 years,” he mentioned.
For the twentieth anniversary of the $15,000 acquisitive prize, the 15 finalist items are on show alongside profitable works from the earlier 19 years.
These embody artwork from the likes of Tom Moore, Jessica Loughlin, Nick Mount and Gabriella Bisetto.
The items are on present on the Artwork Gallery of Western Australia in Perth from Friday till the top of July.
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