Sheila Labatt

Abstract:

My research addresses internal form in cast glass.  That is, ‘ink’ imagery, which is wholly contained within clear, colourless glass.  For the purposes of this project, ‘ink’ refers to liquid ink as is used in Chinese brush painting and calligraphy rather than to ink applications such as those used in print media.  The aim is not to use ink itself.  Rather, it is to emulate ink, rendered inside glass, while exploring the material similarities between the two media, including their liquid properties and their ability to be worked opaque or translucent. 

The project explores the interface between control and chance; where the artistic process ends and the unique properties of glass take over and are governed by heat, time and gravity.  It also addresses the transformation of two-dimensional line drawing and ink wash into the third dimension.  My research question is how the kiln and furnace casting processes can best be exploited to render the fluid, gestural and expressionistic immediacy of brush and ink painting, three-dimensionally, in solid glass. 

Following fourteen years of studying and making art in Korea and China, I have developed an affinity for brush and ink painting and, more specifically, for both traditional and contemporary Chinese landscape and calligraphy.  This project is an exploration of various methods of capturing apparent spontaneity in cast glass, in the form of ‘ink’ abstractions that evoke these styles of Chinese painting.

My methodology includes identifying and isolating the elements that characterize Chinese brushwork in landscape and in calligraphy, which are intimately linked art forms in China.  Studio tests include manipulating different types of glass to create a dynamic, rhythmic, assured and graceful ink aesthetic, interpreted in the third dimension.  I use flameworked inclusions to explore ‘ink’ line and experiment with glass powders to evoke depth through different intensities of ‘ink wash’.  All tests are recorded in detail and are used to anticipate and loosely control glass movement.  My research into Chinese brushwork characteristics is used to identify a framework within which the studio work sits. 

The variety, order and combination of techniques used to create the work constitutes original knowledge in the field of cast glass, as does reinterpreting the characteristics of Chinese calligraphy and landscape, including line quality, ink wash, composition and balance, embedded within the framework of solid, cast glass.