Nick Mount: The Fabric of Work

On view: March 18 - May 2, 2015
Opening reception: Wednesday, March 18, 6-8pm  

Nick Mount, a leading figure in the studio glass movement in Australia, has been an innovator, advocate, and instructor for glassblowing since his first encounter with the medium in the early 1970s. Heavily influenced by the masters of glassblowing technique in Venice as well as vanguards in American studio glass, Mount has achieved international recognition for his exuberant expressions that demonstrate the medium’s fragility, fluidity, and power.

The Fabric of Work features a series of sculptural assemblages that are at once provocative and playful, studied and seductive. Flouting scale, convention, and – reverently – the Venetian traditions studied so diligently by glassblowers all over the world, his forms are a testament to the integrity of glass as well as its history. The versatility of the material and the elaborate processes involved in shaping it are reflected in the gesture and texture of Mount’s objects. The artist’s manipulation of surfaces and the addition of media such as wood or metal heighten the narratives played out in these vibrant tableaux.

Mount views his body of work as one continuously evolving series. He acknowledges the values of skilled craft and artisanal practice, believing that collective hand skills are our principal records of culture and society. His esteem for these practices and their associated tools (such as plumb bobs and spirit levels) is implicit in the exhibition’s subtitle – The Fabric of Work.

-Jennifer Navva Milliken
Curator of Craft, Bellevue Arts Museum

Nick Mount: The Fabric of Work is part of the Living Treasure: Masters of Australian Craft series, an initiative of Object: Australian Design Centre. The touring exhibition has only been made possible through a major funding grant from Arts SA.