Sabbia – Australia’s only gallery dedicated to representing ceramics, fibre and glass artists – celebrates twenty years in March. The gallery marks the occasion with twenty, from 5 to 29 March 2025, an exhibition of sixty-eight artists (including our March 2025 cover artist Mel Douglas), and comprising over fifty new commissioned works by past and present Sabbia artists invited to reflect on the seminal moments and creative turning points in their practice during their time with the gallery, and to create a new work inspired by these fresh directions.
Pippin Drysdale, Breakaway Series III – Blue Enamel Orchid, 2024, ceramic, porcelain incised with coloured glazes, 12-piece installation. Photograph: Robert Frith. Courtesy the artist and Sabbia, Sydney
After eight years working as the Gallery Manager and Curator at Quadrivium Sydney, Director Anna Grigson launched Sabbia with her sister Maria Grimaldi (who retired in 2020). In 2009 Sabbia relocated to Paddington before moving to Elizabeth Street, Redfern, in 2019, where in 2023 it added a mezzanine gallery space. Dedicated to representing artists specialising in glass, ceramics and, since 2020, fibre, major acquisitions have included Pippin Drysdale’s large-scale installation The Patterning of Light – Bush Tomato by the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 2023 and Cobi Cockburn’s entire exhibition esse by the Art Gallery of Western Australia in 2011. Sabbia also works with and represents First Nations artists from remote art centres across the country, specialising in glass and ceramics and has been a strong supporter of student graduate artists through mentorship.
As part of the twenty exhibition, Sabbia will launch an accompanying publication – SABBIA at 20: the next chapter – with images and reflections from artists, collectors and curators who have contributed to the more than 280 exhibitions, opening nights, art fairs and public programs that Sabbia has presented since 2005.
