I am interested in capturing some of the feeling of what it is like to be part of the world at this time. Each generation wishes to leave behind some artifacts as a record of the fact of their existence. There appears to be a subconscious urge to record the essence of experience in an idiosyncratic manner. People look to artists, writers and crafts persons of a generation to sum up and record the achievements of their era. In this way, I see my images, and forms, as being a reflection of my time, like the school photo, the family portrait, the sports team photograph.
Because of the non-specific nature of the messages, I have elected to use the concept of the 'bill poster' as a means of expressing my observations. I see these peeling messages on construction site barriers, bus stands, trees. They represent to me a kind of soap box platform of the visual world; a communication of the to whom it may concern type.
Garry Nash, 1986 (from Maurine Littleton Gallery Exhibition catalogue)
The Flora series looks back to the last time nature was explored thoroughly though glass in the art nouveau period, a look that is secretly loved by many, but often publically ridiculed. Taking this as a basis, but to keep it relevant to contemporary understanding of nature and imagery, computer technology has been used to generate floral stencils of plants from original drawings and modified photographs. The plants chosen are ones that many New Zealanders will find in their back yards, native or introduced.
Their look is also inspired by the artist Banksy’s political stencils, so they have been deliberately left undisguised as stenciled images, in sharp contrast to art nouveau practices.
For this project he has been working with his studio assistant, Claire Bell, who has been working with Garry for four years. Claire’s background is in Painting, drawing, vinyl work and stained glass from her time at Elam School of Fine Arts. Together they have been creating new imagery and processes for this project and beyond.
Working with the idea of creating an image not only on the glass, but as part of the glass itself, like a painter does with paint is one of the key inspirations behind the 'landscape vessel' series of work.
Working with this idea and wanting to create something that would resonate with a local audience, each vessel depicts a imaginary New Zealand landscape scene, created through the manipulation of hot glass additions. Using hot glass to create imagery in this way goes beyond the picture plane and into the round, each vessel owing its own panoramic view.
These vessels blur the notions and boundaries surrounding two and three dimensional practices by using hot glass to draw or paint on the glass as a three dimensional canvas to create recognisable imagery. The role of the glass blower becomes both sculptor and painter, yet transcends both to create a object different from that of either discipline.
As another avenue of exploration into the language cutting and colour, the technique of graal enables the maker to present it a glossier and much more expressive format that is smooth, showing no incisions from the cutting wheel. Graal allows the marks of the cutting wheel to be shown in a magnified way as line. pattern and colour, through the two stage process of making an 'embryo' vessel that is then cut when cold, heated up and then cased in more glass and blown out into its full form. This process transforms the cutting marks and the vessel itself into something else, allowing influence from the hot glass process into the cold one.
In the early 1980's, the urge to explore and turn traditional glass techniques on their ear drove Garry Nash to create this ongoing series of works. Exploiting the main principles of blown glass, form and colour, in combination with cut glass in a way that defied traditional cut crystal in both scale and texture created a defining new way to work with glass, colour and cutting.
Named 'Vessels of coloured light' by Prof. Iain Buchanan, these works combine large scale blown glass with parred back cutting techniques that explore the marks as a language unto themselves and the possibilities they offer for creating a new language of cutting. Through combining these marks with acid polishing to create a matt, frosted surface rather than the traditional polished cut crystal.
Wishing to take his vessels of coloured light series in a new direction, Garry started working with the colour aspect, using overlays and stronger, more opaque colours to transform the look and language of his cutting practice into a different animal, one that could explore ideas of written and pictorial language. Many of these works were made for shows in Taipei and Hong Kong in 2005, but is a practice that he continues to periodically explore with new forms, cuts and colour combionations.
Exploring using gold leaf on coloured glass provides a twofold challenge to a glass worker; not only to explore an opulent aesthetic, but also to wrestle with a technical challenge of being able to control and manipulate a very difficult element of glass decoration on a larger blown out scale. It is something Garry has worked with since the earliest days of his practice, and something that he uses to explore the sumptuous side of glass blowing.
Named for their similarities to the delicate effects of woven thread and the feather like structure produced on old fashioned iced baked goods, in this series Garry explores how to create contemporary looks and applications of thread techniques in hot glass making. Vases made in the verso of the white with black pattern are called 'pinstripe ware' (not pictured) for their resemblance to a fine suit.
Traditional Silver Point Drawings involve using a silver stylus to create line drawings on a specially prepared surface, and in the renaissance were often used by painters to make preparatory studies or works in their own right. These works in glass rely on the same principle of using a modern metal stylus to make line drawings or engravings on the prepared 'silvered' glass, exploring both picture and panorama. The work is part of Garry's ongoing investigation using imagery on and in glass, combining the techniques from several other bodies of work with his engraving practice.
Snorkeling in the cooler waters of the Rarotongan Reef to escape the heat of the day, exotic plants, corals and fish dance in the rippling water, imprinting their bright hues and movement into the mind. Returning from living and working there, the wish to translate some of that visual experience into glass resulted in a series of large scale 'Reef vessels' that aim to impart the feel of those watery moments.
Wanting another way to explore the sumptuous side of glass, using familiar techniques in a new way, the rolled crushed series focuses on amplifying the richness of single (and occasionally two) colour tones. Using up to four variations of the same colour within a single work, these pieces work with the primary and secondary colour palette to produce rich table and display ware for the modern home and workplace.
The main palette for this series is rich red, lipstick (a more orangey red) azure blue, lapis blue, lime and kowhai (exterior yellow with a green interior). A Reef variation is also avaliable, with a coral red interior and a blue and white exterior.
Cane work in glass can range from plain coloured extruded strips of glass used as decorative pickups for the surface of the glass through to intricate 'portrait murrini' that are made on the torch for later use. The technique stretches back to Roman times, although the terminology 'murrini or murrine' translates as little pieces or a piece of Murano, the glass making Isle just outside of Venice. The English term for murrini is mosaic glass, and the most common form of these are the mille fiori or a thousand flowers.
Garry learnt about working with canes and murrini as a young glassblower in 1980 through a workshop with American Glass Artist Richard Marquis. From this, Garry set out to explore the full gamut of glass working techniques associated with this branch of glass, including zanfrico, latticino, cast and hot made murrini, and later roll up.
To this day he uses and creates new murrini and canes, and looks for new ways to make new silhouettes, combinations and effects in his work.
