Bundaberg Regional Art Gallery is set to host an upcoming exhibition featuring one of Australia’s most influential and leading glass artists Tom Moore in recognition of The International Year of Glass.
The JamFactory Icon Tom Moore: Abundant Wonder exhibition, which opens on Saturday, 12 February, will showcase his engaging, sophisticated, and technically challenging hybridised animal and plant sculptures.
Not only does Tom’s work feature the sculptures, but it also focuses on the worlds these hybridised creatures inhabit.
Artist Tom Moore said the exhibition had taken years to create and featured a range of unique sculptures including one so large it required a team of five people to make.
“The exhibition has many unusual glass objects that took approximately four years to put together,” he said.
“Many of the objects have intricate patterns embedded in the glass, inspired by ancient Venetian techniques, with the exhibition designed to be absurd, chaotic and amusing.
“Even the simplest sculptures take a lot of planning and preparation over several days, some of the complicated ones take a month or more.
“Final assembly of all the parts needs a team of skilled glassblowers working together, with the largest pieces requiring a team of five people to make.”
Tom said his exhibition would be of particular interest to local art lovers.
“People in Bundaberg might enjoy it especially because it shows strange interactions between humans, plants and animals and the local region has an interesting mix of nature, agriculture and industry,” he said.
Tom said the process of making the sculptures was quite a long one with many different varieties of glass featured in each piece of work.
“Every one of them starts as a drawing, then the patterned rods are made, the small parts are made and finally everything is heated and assembled,” he said.
“Being neither truly a liquid nor a solid good, glass is good for making artworks that explore in-between states of being.”
Not only are people able to view the glass sculptures within the exhibition, but Tom said he had also worked with an animator to bring the sculptures alive in short movies.
“The glass objects have also been made into short movies that are playing constantly on several screens throughout the exhibition,” he said.
“I collaborated with the animator and musician Jonathan Nix to produce these short films, it adds another dimension to the show; seeing how the glass creatures might move and hearing the sounds they might make.”
International Year of Glass perfect time for exhibition
Tom is one of Australia’s leading glass artists and over the course of his career has carved out a singular voice within Australian glass art making.
Council’s Art, Culture and Events portfolio spokesperson Cr John Learmonth said he encouraged people to visit the exhibition to see the works.
“It is fantastic to see our gallery being given the opportunity to host an artist of Tom’s calibre,” Cr Learmonth said.
“I encourage everyone to take the time to see the exhibition, a fitting one with 2022 being the International Year of Glass as decided by the United Nations.”
You can find out more about the upcoming exhibition here.
JamFactory Icon Tom Moore: Abundant Wonder is a JamFactory touring exhibition.
JamFactory Icon Tom Moore: Abundant Wonder is supported by funding from the Australian Government’s Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications through Visions of Australia.
Tom Moore acknowledges the assistance of the Australian Government through the Department of Premier and Cabinet.
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