OPENING: Canberra Glassworks exhibition explores glass and textiles, photography

Lace #9 by Giles Bettison; photo courtesy of canberra glassworks

While colloquially referred to as “down under,” the world’s smallest continent and largest island is more “up and coming” in terms of contemporary glass art. Canberra Glassworks, a studio dedicated to fostering talent and displaying new glass art opened two shows last week featuring the works of three Australian-born artists. Melinda Willis debuted “Transference” alongside a duet exhibition of Jenni Kemarre Martiniello and Giles Bettison’s “Open Work,“a study of texture and textiles through glass.

Artwork by Jenni Kemarre Martiniello; photo courtesy of canberra glassworks

Martiniello and Bettison, both graduates of Canberra’s own Australian National University’s Art program, meld traditional techniques with new forms in glass. Bettison studied under glass art master Lino Tagliapietra and found inspiration in his Venetian background. Tagliapietra’s mother produced lace and his father was a fisherman, perhaps the source of his masterful compositions in strands of cane, something Bettison explores in his breathtakingly lace-like patterning created by stretching cane up to six times to create heretofore unseen levels of intricacy in his newest projects.

Martiniello, at first an artist with a career in sculpture and textiles, came under the tutelage of Klaus Moje and switched her focus to glass. She is descended in part from the indigenous people of Australia, and has made her mark in glass by looking to their traditional woven forms as the catalyst for her art. She describes her most recent forays into glass as, “inspired by traditional woven eel traps, fish traps, and coiled and open weave baskets by Kaurna, Ngarrinjerri, Gunditjmara, Arrernte and NE Arnhemland weavers.” Bettison and Martiniello meld smooth glass with a play on texture and history to produce something brand new in Australian glass art.

Also an Australian National University of Art graduate, Melinda Willis, opens “Transference,” an example of the cross pollination of

"Transference," Melinda Wills; photo courtesy of canberra glassworks

contemporary art forms. Using digital photography and multi-layered sheet glass, she creates depictions of every day life ranging from literal to dreamlike. Rather than looking to old Venice or ancient Aboriginal life, she draws inspiration from the mundane and strives to transform it into a moment. The storefronts and glass edifices of high rises city dwellers rush past on their way to work provide a chance for reflection that is often overlooked. Willis captured these images through digital photography, then transfered them onto a material similar to the omnipresent kind gracing our city scapes. This gives viewers a new vantage point for the ennui, as the out of context, out of focus images still provoke a sense of familiarity.

—Katharine Morales