Artists selected for the 2009 BIGG: Breakthrough Ideas in Global Glass are:

Artist Statement
I remember being dragged around the National Gallery in London every year as a child. I remember my feet aching, the hushes tones we would have to use and the reams upon reams of bizarrely dressed tourists goggling at the canvases on the walls. I loved the sculpture but was usually bored when looking at paintings. My parents would try to instill in me some kind of reverence, but all I saw was dusty old paintings of people in curly white wigs. I was however obsessively impressed with the ornate carved gold frames they were presented in. I remember imagining one of my childhood drawings being hung up in such a hallowed place yet it was the conjuring up of the ornate gold frame around the artwork, which made the thought seem most incongruous. It is the odd match of bizarre gold with cracked oil paint which I now cherish in my memory, and it is this odd pairing which spurs me on to make sculpture. Since finding glass as a medium I have enjoyed the physicality of the process of making. Though it can sometimes be a struggle, glass offers the opportunity for an artist to truly make their mark, and I love this about glass but it is my thought process, which I truly value. I am as likely to get inspiration watching an infomercial as visiting an Art Gallery and it is this desire to match the ordinary with the ornate, which seems to sum up my work.

Biography
I started my career as an artist by graduating from the University of Sunderland in 2000 with a Degree in Glass, Architectural Glass and Ceramics. I then became a hot glass studio team member at the National Glass Centre in Sunderland. In 2006 I graduated with a MFA in Art from The Ohio State University and l took up residency of my own studio at the Red House Glass Cone in Stourbridge, England in January 2008.  Since moving back to the UK in 2006 I have been included in various exhibitions at venues including Urban Glass in New York, Eisch Gallery in Frauenau , Germany, and the British Glass Biennale, as well as having two Solo Exhibitions. I was also included in the book ‘25 Years of New Glass Review’ by Tina Oldknow.

Resume
Selected Education/Qualifications
2004 - 2006    MFA Art, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA
1999 - 2000    BA Hon, Glass, Architectural Glass and Ceramics, Sunderland University, UK

Selected Exhibitions
2009    Solo Show, Red House Glass Cone Stourbridge  
Ten, Comissioned Exhibition, Bilston Craft Gallery, West Midlands

2008    Milk Bottle Art, Artifex Gallery, Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham
Box of Delights, Keele Art Gallery, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire
Love Glass, Red House Glass Cone, Stourbridge,
British Glass Bianalle, Ruskin Glass Centre, Stourbridge
Same Difference, Eisch Gallery, Frauenau, Germany
Friar Lane Gallery, Nottingham
Open 2008, Wolverhampton Art Gallery, Wolverhampton
Staff Show, Broad Eye Gallery, Stafford College

2007    2007 MFA Exhibition  Robert Lehman Gallery at UrbanGlass, Brooklyn, New York, USA

2006    Symptom of a Notion (solo show) Clean Space Gallery, Sherman Studio Art Center, Columbus, Ohio, USA
Graduate Show 2006, Hopkins Hall Gallery, Columbus, Ohio, USA

2005    Cool Women, Hot Glass, Glass Axis, Columbus, Ohio, USA
Student Show, GAS@Ausglass, Adelaide, Australia
Man and Beast, Emily Davis Gallery, Folk Hall, Akron, Ohio, USA
94th Annual Spring Juried Exhibition, Ohio Art League’ Ohio, USA
Graduate Show 2005, Hopkins Hall Gallery, Columbus, Ohio, USA

2004    Specify Glass, Kuhn Fine Arts Gallery, Marion, Ohio, USA
R+D, Vardy Gallery, Sunderland, UK
British Glass Biennale, Ruskin Glass Centre, Stourbridge, W.Midlands, UK

2003-4    Bombay Sapphire Blue Room, Geffrye Museum, London, UK (Touring Exhibition)
Crafts Showcase, Djanogly Art Gallery, Nottingham, UK

2003    Convergence/Divergence, Salle Etain, Limoges, Limosin, France
New Work, Galerie 10er Haus, Gmunden, Austria

Selected Publications
New Glass Review 31, Spring 2009
Lens Magazine, China 2008
Singapore Architect, 2008
Sabado Magazine, Portugal 2008
Glass, Issue 107, Summer 2007
25 Years of New Glass Review, Tina Oldknow. Published by The Corning Museum of Glass 2005 
Neues Glas, Bombay Sapphire Exhibition, Spring 2004
New Glass Review 25, Spring 2003
How Is Contemporary British Glass Seen Outside? Sylva Petrova, The Glass Art Society Journal. Amsterdam-Seattle 2002

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