Each year, GAS showcases the work of the global glass community in three juried exhibitions:
- Connection: Glass from Every Angle, our Member exhibition
- Evolution: A Showcase of Emerging International Talent, our Student exhibition
- Trace: An Exploration of Sustainable Glass Art, our Green exhibition
We celebrated the ingenuity and talent of our community through both in-person and hybrid exhibitions at our Detroit conference, and now we are excited to announce our exhibition winners! “Each of our exhibitions represents the range of innovation and creativity present in the glass community. From emerging to established voices, the work presented in this year’s exhibitions expands our collective understanding of glass and provides a critical opportunity to engage in conversations about glass,” said Brandi P. Clark, executive director of GAS.
Connections: Glass from Every Angle
Our 2023 Member exhibition was juried by:
- Ferd Hampson, Founder, Habatat, USA
- Karlyn Sutherland, Artist, Scotland
- Ruriko Tzchida, Director, Toyama Glass Art Museum, Japan
Photos by Leia Guo
First place | Sykes Regulars, Geoffrey Bowton
Artist statement:
“Sykes Regulars, a group of resolute infantry personnel who deployed and fought throughout the longstanding wars in the Middle East. My pâte de verre continues to live and navigate through military narratives, unpacking the mental weight of old duffle bag and rucksack stories. This work is constructed by hand building multiple layers of glass powders and shards, which compose a thin hollow object. Carefully explore each surface and discover the considerations made to portray wartime experiences to the individual, such as a gunshot wound, or shrapnel abrasions, incidents that happened while serving on the battlefield.”
Geoffrey Bowton is also a 2023 Saxe Emerging Artist awardee.
Second place | Vertical Reflexion3, Péter Borkovics
Artist statement:
“I modeled the crinkling mechanisms of glowing fluids. I recorded the stability of the initial states and I tracked and learned the changes. The glass objects made in this way do not meet the criteria of the narrowly defined fine art design, but they do not bear the mark of the planned industrial object culture, either. I looked for a new, personal design. I looked for a design where glass material dictates only for me, so I can be the first to write it down.”
Third place | Seeking Nowhere, Sandra Bacchi
Artist statement:
“Seeking Nowhere investigates the sense of belonging that immigrants seek when they leave their homeland. It takes enormous courage and strength for immigrants to leave behind everything they know to explore new horizons. For each of these travelers, the experience is unique – even when the circumstance seems similar.
Seeking Nowhere is composed of 35 photographs, capturing five different sea horizons; each repeated seven times. The photographic decals were manipulated using various glass materials, techniques, and firing processes. Accompanying the piece, an audio interview is played on speakers sharing stories of immigrants from different parts of the globe.”
Evolution: A Showcase of Emerging International Talent
Our 2023 Student exhibition was juried by:
- Eriko Kobayashi, Artist, USA
- Andrea da Ponte, Artist, Argentina
- Albert Young, Artist and Owner, Michigan Hot Glass, USA
Photo by Amanda Crans
First place | Infestation of Fixation, Alyssa Radtke
Artist statement:
“There is a beauty behind the connections created by emotional responses. It is when we have our strongest feeling that we are the closest to one another. With glass I aim to represent my fixations, a break from the pattern and a moment of chaos. Chipping away at the insides of the structures until broken free and allowed to spread over its host. These fixations are full of question and doubt. I cannot answer the questions I ask myself in fear of choosing wrong, but I will continue to accumulate them and store them away within myself.”
Second place | Searching for Soil, Noa Hagiladi
Artist statement:
“In this work, I deal with issues of identity, vulnerability, and fragility. Relocating and studying for my master’s abroad brings up questions, regarding my roots, origins, and sense of belonging. I combined powder-printed text that I wrote in Hebrew and embroidered in red thread, in the shape of roots, that symbolizes the search for soil to implant myself within, as well as veins and blood symbolize life. The holes in the glass hold the embroidery and the embroidered roots hold the glass. This relationship emphasizes the dialog between softness and stiffness, weakness and strength within our fragile lives.”
Third place | Grief, Heather Phillips
Artist statement:
“Through our clothing, or the material which surrounds us, we are able to communicate our emotions. The height of an expression which can be captured in a photograph and frozen in time, can also be embodied in glass. The delicacy and fragility of pâte de verre as a medium, as well as the ability of glass to be illuminated in a way unique to this material, enhances this communication. My work explores absence, presence, the reflection of ourselves in these sculptures, and the human capacity to express emotion.”
Trace: An Exploration of Sustainable Glass Art
Our 2023 Green exhibition was juried by:
- Katarzyna Krej, Artist, Poland
- Rick Mills, Head of Glass, University of Hawaii at Mānoa, USA
- Danielle Ruttenberg, Artist and Director, Remark Glass, USA
First place | Ten Green Bottles from the series, “Recycling Narratives, Whispering Sweeting Nothings,” Hannah Gibson
Artist statement:
“Passionate about sustainability and recycling, using predominantly recycled glass and found objects, Sweet Nothings are a series of cast glass figures whispering Sweet Nothings to one another. Inviting the viewer to question what are they whispering and why?”
Second place | Seeking: The Storm, Cheryl Wilson-Smith
Artist statement:
“I am a sculptor working primarily with glass which I build like a 3D-printed object, and fire as a whole in the kiln. These layers in my work Iterate, for me, the passage of time geologically and generationally. I live in the far north of Canada, surrounded by the manifestations of nature relatively untouched by humans. I am constantly made aware of our transience. I strive to reflect the graceful geological strength in my work. Through this I contemplate the passage of time and the evanescence of life as it relates to the natural world that surrounds me.”
Third place | Devotional, Morgan Gilbreath
Artist statement:
“These vessels are sustainably created to enshrine the everyday. After casting into molds designed for optimum efficiency, the glass is cut to size, individually faceted and brought to a satin finish. Any waste glass is recycled into larger castings. After several years of research, testing and refinement–this modular, versatile and scalable casting system is designed to cherish & honor every small particle of this world, both in the production process and in the function of the resulting vessels.”
Congratulations to our award winners and to all artists who submitted work for our three exhibitions! We can not wait to see what work is submitted next year! Stay tuned for when the call for entries opens later this year.