Stilleven

Visual Art Exhibition Review | Brian Rope

Stilleven I Rose-Mary Faulkner

ANCA Gallery I 14 May – 1 June 2025

A decal is “a plastic, cloth, paper, or ceramic substrate that has printed on it a pattern or image that can be moved to another surface upon contact, usually with the aid of heat or water.” Rose-Mary Faulkner transfers images onto kiln formed glass. She layers several related images before further manipulating the surface and form through multiple fusing or cold working. This expands the imagery beyond the original photograph as the transparency of glass enhances layering for the purpose of depth and overlapping. 

Rose-Mary Faulkner, Six oranges and a Saturday morning ritual, 2024,
kiln formed glass with decals, 30 x 20 x 1cm.

Stilleven exhibits works by glass artist Faulkner, considering connections to places and objects as both self-portraiture and representative of lived experience and narrative. Softly focused compositions of domestic settings form an avenue to explore dynamics of the absence and presence of people and bodies, connection to environments we embody and the way objects can exist as metaphors.

Domesticity, and artworks depicting inanimate objects found in domestic situations, are domains that have historically been disregarded. The Dutch-origin term "stilleven" means inanimate objects. However, disguised symbolism means domestic objects can be extremely significant revealing the narrative of people's lives, bearing witness to time and change. That is why many of us value, and display in our own homes, precious objects inherited from our forebears.

Sadly, many still consider domestic tasks a domain for women only. This exhibition examines the familiarity and femininity of these topics as ones that possess significance, story, and profound meaning. Faulkner illustrates what is simultaneously familiar, difficult, and valuable amidst the subtle rhythms of everyday.

One particularly delightful work, Snowdon (a study) is a diptych about a much-loved farm house which, I believe, has been in the artist’s family for many generations.

Rose-Mary Faulkner, Snowdon (a study), 2023, kiln formed glass with decals.

Faulkner is based in Australia’s national capital, Canberra. She graduated from the Australian National University School of Art & Design, Glass Workshop, with a Bachelor of Visual Arts in 2015 and then with first class honours in 2016. Since then, her work has been exhibited widely - in Australia, Berlin, America and Japan. It has been acquired for the Wagga Wagga National Art Glass Gallery collection. The artist works as an arts educator and creates art at Canberra Glassworks and in her home studio which she shares with her partner and glass artist, Rob Schwartz.

In 2018 Faulkner won the National Emerging Art Glass Prize (Wagga Wagga) and spent six weeks at Northlands Creative in Lybster, Scotland, taking part in intensive classes. The same year she held her first solo exhibition, with a body of work that developed from the processes and ideas she had explored in her honours year. In 2019, she was a finalist in the inaugural Klaus Moje Glass Award (Canberra Glassworks). 

For me the most interesting piece in the show is an artwork comprising 32 separate still life compositions gathered from women in her extended family and artists network of friends. Each contributor provided photographs of objects or spaces in their own homes which Faulkner has fused into glass. The images are from women who range in age from 20 to 89. They live in Australia, America and the United Kingdom. The catalogue describes the collection of pieces as a kind of still life portraiture. This fabulous artwork is a created composition revealing a great deal about women’s experiences despite (or because of) the contents being domestic.

Rose-Mary Faulkner, three of the 32 works in Tending (quiet testimonies from homes), 2025 – Kilnformed glass with decals, dimensions variable (installation images by Brian Rope)

There are also a number of works featuring bent glass forms which, again, are about inanimate objects.

Rose-Mary Faulkner, Two vessels in light, 2024, hand bent neon with argon mercury gas, dimensions variable. 

The exhibition essay by Dr Jacqueline Bradley is a beautifully written piece, well worth reading in conjunction with a visit to the exhibition. Bradley speaks of Faulkner’s “deep consideration of the still life genre, shifting between the formal and symbolic, the private and personal.”

This review is also available on the author's blog here.

Emotional Landscapes I

Exhibition Review: Photography | Brian Rope

Emotional Landscapes I | Jenny Adams, Julie Delves, Eva van Gorsel & Delene White

ANCA Gallery, Dickson | 17 July - 4 August 2024 

This art exhibition at the ANCA Gallery with the Tinshed Art Group examines the emotional connections that humans have with the natural world. It makes observations about the nuanced and intricate interaction between the natural world and humankind. It looks at how humans affect the climate and the earth, but it also maintains optimism that appreciating nature's marvels makes us feel a part of it and inspires us to take constructive action. Through this investigation, the show hopes to spark reflection, foster empathy, and motivate viewers to dedicate themselves to the pursuit of a peaceful and long-lasting cohabitation with the natural world.

The participating artists work with various mediums. Jenny Adams and Julie Delves paint with acrylic on canvas. Delene White uses oils on canvas, found objects, and fibreglass & silicone. I enjoyed all their works very much, particularly White’s installation The bigger picture, with its lightweight wall marching ants. 

However, I will concentrate here on the photography of Eva van Gorsel - since it is the art form in which I work myself and, so, am best qualified to discuss. This artist’s seventeen pieces are archival pigment prints. The seventeen works form a series created by van Gorsel for this exhibition. They are all of a high standard and I was most pleased to see several of them had already been purchased when I visited.

Watching Out explores the fact that human development and the pursuit of food security have been intertwined throughout history. The artist notes that deforestation for cultivation disrupts ecosystems, leading to biodiversity loss and climate change. She reminds us that humanity needs to watch over the landscapes and ecosystems we depend on for survival, making concerted efforts toward environmentally friendly and socially responsible land use practices.

In that piece, two or more images have been combined into a beautifully blended composite showing something of the interactions between humans and a rural landscape. So there is a human looking out over the landscape, plus a section of fencing and parts of a building constructed by humans.

Watching Out © Eva van Gorsel

The same approach has been taken with most of the artist’s other works, but the messages are diverse. For example, Morning Flight includes birds and van Gorsel’s artist statement speaks about how engaging with natural environments has been linked to improved mental health, increased creativity, and heightened feelings of belonging fostering a deeper connection with the natural world.

Morning Flight © Eva van Gorsel

I particularly appreciated Encroachment. It incorporates a drawing of Canberra’s central national capital area and two examples of the native animals seen in the city’s urban areas. This is all about the need for urban planning that achieves sustainable developments.

Encroachment © Eva van Gorsel

There are also works about foxes, weeds and habitats. One artwork is titled Endemophilia. That word may not be familiar to you. If that is the case, let me tell you that it is about the particular love manifest in the people of a place that is special to them. It is what gives people a particular sense of belonging as opposed to a global sense of place. This image shows us an example of the type of water and forest environment where the artist feels a deep sense of belonging.

Endemophilia © Eva van Gorsel

Other works tell us to stop messing with the environment, speak about the unpredictability of nature, discuss the history of climate extremes, reference the fact that water is essential for life and note that global carbon emissions have surged to record levels.

This exhibition most successfully does what it set out to do. I commend it to you and applaud all the artists.

This review is also available on the author's blog here.