 | “Robyn Irwin’s flared glass vessels stand apart from the usual. Her simple organic shapes are manipulated and deconstructed to create curious elliptical forms. Irwin debates the issues of form and establishes tensions, to amplify and augment a visual narrative concerning the precarious strata and volcanic nature of the New Zealand landscape.” (1)
Irwin reveals virtuosity in her painterly approach to the medium. Delicate layers of white glass are applied in brushstrokes seeming to drift like snow flurries across the surface. She builds a strata of opaque black and white layers over clear glass enabling her to imbue the vessels with light.
The concern of this body of work is also to debate the functional vessel. Irwin’s elliptical forms allow for a multiplicity of vantage points: the three exterior sides and an interior of the bowl each providing a unique vista, which traverses the memory of the vessel.
Irwin’s Snow Melt vessels are a response to “the North Island’s Central Plateau and the high mountains and lakes of the South Island”. (2) They mirror natural phenomenon such as the way in which hard volcanic ridges are exposed in high contrast to melting snow or the ice flows gliding down glacial rivers, echoing in hidden snow caves.
Born in Wellington, 1953. Robyn Irwin has an established reputation both nationally and internationally. She has been a consecutive finalist in the Ranamok Prize for Contemporary Glass. Australia-New Zealand from 2003-2006. A finalist in the Norsewear Art Award 2002, 2003 and 2004. Included in Southern Exposure: A Survey of New Zealand Glass. Ebeltoft Glasmuseum, Denmark, 2004 and the touring Glass Invitational NZ exhibition 2005 – 2006. Irwin recently won first prize in the Members Exhibition, at the New Zealand Society of Artists in Glass Conference for her Snow Melt vessel series.
(1) Stephen Higginson, Glass Invitational NZ, 2005
(2) Robyn Irwin, Artist Statement, 2006
| |
