Art With Glass – The British Glass Biennale

The British Glass Biennale is an exhibition to showcase the rich array of British glass talent with a £11,500 prize fund.

The fusion of raw talent of the young students that exhibit alongside long established and commercially successful artists makes this exhibition fresh and at the forefront of Glass modern design. British Art with Glass has never looked so good.

A distinguished Jury panel selected 96 glass pieces by 62 artists (including 9 students) from 449 pieces entered. What you get is truly inspirational, elegant and contemporary art glass.

A significant amount of lighting has been put forward by the judging panel, notably the stunning, botanically inspired chandelier by the increasingly in-demand artist, James Lethbridge.

James Lethbridge
`Physalia` Chandelier £4350
The glass making technique known as lampworking is much in favour amongst contributing artists this year. This exquisitely detailed bowl by Ayako Tani is one such example. She is influenced by memories of watching her Grandmother knitting with wool. She describes her work as `knitting glass into 3D shapes`.

Folks! by Ayako Tani, £1675
Totally stunning. I had no idea Art for glass could be so progressive.

Manipulating glass to create fabric-like structures is a key theme amongst successful exhibits at the 2010 British Glass Biennale.

Kathryn Wightman is currently undertaking a PhD in glass but her creations have strong connections to textiles and fashion. Her recent work `A little bit of Lace` strives to give a familiar object a new and unexpected perspective. The resulting object is rich in texture and beautifully tactile, certainly not what you might expect from glass.

Cathryn Shilling Kathryn Wightman
`Synergy Series ii` £870 each `A little bit of Lace!` £650
Cathryn Shilling fuses strips of glass to form a flat sheet that resembles woven material. These are returned to the kiln for further shaping and the result is a fabric-like glass piece that appears to `hang` and drape just like the real thing.

I didn`t realise just how versatile (and beautiful) Glass could be until I saw these pieces. The inventiveness of these highly talented glass artists is in clear evidence at this exhibition.

Everything that is on show is also available to buy. Prices range from £85 to £11,000. How could you miss this?!

Exhibition dates: 27 August – 11 September 2010The British Glass Biennale is held in the former Royal Doulton – Webb Corbett factory at Ruskin Glass Centre, Stourbridge, West Midlands, For more info, please go to www.biennale.org.uk