27 July - 14 August 2006
about the exhibition
Glass artists Benjamin Edols and Kathy Elliott have been working in partnership since their first joint exhibition at the de Vera Gallery, San Francisco, USA in 1993. Benjamin studied initially at the Sydney College of the Arts, and undertook a post-graduate diploma at the Canberra School of Art in 1991. Kathy received her BA from the Canberra School of Art in 1991, after which she travelled to the United States working her way through public and private glass studios. Benjamin and Kathy’s collaborative works involve a two-stage process of hot and cold glass techniques. After Benjamin has blown the vessels, Kathy cuts the glass on a glass-cutting lathe, using stone and diamond wheels to create an organic surface of lines and planes. Both artists see their collaborative work as being more than the sum of two ideas. Kathy explains: “We work with glass for many reasons. For Ben it is a strong attraction to the process of working in the Venetian style of glassblowing. I am inspired by what is possible in terms of carving and decorating the forms and working with the light to generate a breathtaking effect. For us, glass is a medium for colour and light as well as an opportunity to explore design and we try to use these uplifting elements in ways that are original.”
Ben and Kathy have exhibited widely in Australia, as well as showing in Japan and the USA. Their work is represented in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Victoria, Queensland Art Gallery, Powerhouse Museum (Sydney, NSW), Art Gallery of South Australia, Artbank, the American Glass Museum (New Jersey), the Corning Museum of Glass (NY, USA), and the Victoria and Albert Museum (London).
