Contemporary Glass Society Exhibition
We are delighted to welcome the first collections in an exclusive partnership with Contemporary Glass Society. Featuring sculpture and functionware, the CGS exhibition will showcase a different selection of glassmakers each season to celebrate the glory of glass!
This season's artists are:
Catherine Mahe
Helen Grierson
Kate Henderson
Morag Reekie
Pat Marvell
Penny Riley-Smith
Stevie Davies
Sue Woolhouse
All of the pieces in this show are available to purchase through the Own Art finance scheme. Due to current circumstances all work will be sent directly from the artist and will therefore be unavailable for gallery collection. To find out more about any of the available pieces or artists in this showcase email art@thebiscuitfactory.com
Catherine Mahe
Catherine is a self-taught designer maker based in Manchester. Finding inspiration from many sources, Catherine is fond of bold colour combinations, patterns and textures, and is drawn to the 'unreliable' and 'hard to tame' characteristics of glass as a medium.
Using premier quality, Portland-based Bullseye glass for their expansive range of colours, she is able to explore bold contrasting palettes inspired by nature where colour clashes do not exist. Texture plays an increasingly important role in her current work, adding a tactile dimension to her pieces and recycling scraps of glass to add further design contrasts.
Helen Grierson
Helen works from her studio in Northumberland. A full time artist since 2005, she fell in love with glass after attending an evening course and has honed her practice through a process of continual experimentation.
Helen likens working with fused glass as 'alchemy' in that you never quite know what will happen in the kiln and the effect leaded glass can have on a room. Her journey as an artist is about nurturing her creativity and having the courage to let that spirit take her where it may lead, never losing the ability to play.
Kate Henderson
Kate trained in stained glass at Edinburgh College of Art and has since built up a varied portfolio of commissioned glass for public and private buildings across Scotland and Europe. She has won awards for her paintings from the RGI and the RSW.
Kate's work incorporates traditional and contemporary techniques in glass - from painting and layering to acid etching and waterjet cutting. Interested in creating pieces that explore the fragility of glass, Kate works into the surface as well as the edges to expose the vulnerability of the material.
Morag Reekie
Morag studied sculpture at Sheffield Hallam University and now her practice focuses on sculpture in glass, using the lost wax casting (Pate de Verre) technique. For the last couple of years she has been working with her father, glass artist David Reekie, as an apprentice producing my own work.
Morag's body of work reflects her family life; her mischievous, colourful glass sculptures have evolved from drawings inspired by playing with her children. With her more recent work, she has incorporated found objects using old, discarded or found items which have a unknown history and a story to tell. Finding these objects gives her inspiration and ideas for her work. By transforming them into pieces of art, Morag changes their purpose and gives them a new lease of life and her sculptures tell their own stories.
Pat Marvell
Pat is based in North London working from her home studio. After a career in education and public sector consultancy, Pat decided to pursue her dream to work with glass.
Inspired by pastoral landscapes and the rugged coasts of Britain, Pat uses glass to celebrate the beauty of the natural world. Frequently using texture taken directly from natural materials, Pat plays with colour and form to create cast works which can often be interpreted as natural scenes.
Penny Riley-Smith
Working in Yorkshire, Penny creates kiln-fired glass producing textured and figured dishes, bowls, jewellery and wall art.
Penny is also active in her local arts community with a position on the committee of the Niddart Trail, which coordinates every August a wide range of artists showing their work in exhibitions and workshops around beautiful Nidderdale.
Stevie Davies
Working from her Derbyshire studio, Stevie enjoys a varied creative practice specialising in contemporary fused glass. Her signature style, 'Interfused Glass', is an elaborate range of wall art, 3D forms with a focus on colour and texture.
Specifically interested in manipulating small elements of glass, Stevie uses heat and chemical reactions to create finished which are unique and somewhat uncontrolled but where the kiln and the media dictate the final forms and shapes.
Sue Woolhouse
While studying for her BA Glass at West Surrey College of Art and Design at Farnham, Sue began to develop an interest in cast glass, and later developed her ideas whilst studying for an MA at the Royal College of Art in London. Beginning her career in the North East as a freelance lecturer at Sunderland University, Sue's practice has been based in Ouseburn, Newcastle since 1989.
Sue's work is mainly one-off bespoke pieces. Each commission is site specific and has a relationship to the space and the people that use it. Texture, light and glass colours are used to transform new or existing spaces.
Continue to explore handmade and original art and craft online with The Biscuit Factory...