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Sabbia Gallery present Jessica Loughlin
Sydney Contemporary 2023, Booth H06
Carriageworks
7 to 10 September
Jessica Loughlin is one of Australia’s most internationally acclaimed glass artists renowned for her innovative technical approach to kiln-formed glass, creating ethereal glass works evocative of the beauty of emptiness and her extensive research into light and space.
Through her contemplative artworks, Loughlin questions our perceptions of the physical world we inhabit. She is drawn to the vast landscapes of Australia’s interiors, especially the impressive salt lakes regions of South Australia. For Loughlin, this is space or distance that is imperceptible, shifting and contorted as you move within it.
Jessica Loughlin, Focal point ii, 2023, 47 x 47 x 3cm; Focal point iii, 2023, 47 x 47 x 3cm; Waning crescents i, 2023, 84 x 19.5 x 4cm; Resonance v, 2023, 90 x 120 x 2.5cm; Resonance iv, 2023, 90 x 120 x 2.5cm. Courtesy the artist and Sabbia Gallery, Sydney
In the recent works on exhibition with Sabbia Gallery at Sydney Contemporary 2023, Loughlin uses a semi-translucent opaline glass that behaves similarly to the light in the sky. Fine molecules in the glass split the spectrum of light into cool and warm tones, resulting in the works changing colour as the light moves through the day.
It is a challenge to our perception that artworks such as Waning Crescent are not made from blue-coloured glass, rather it is opaline and black glass that halts the transmission of light through the surface at its edge while light travels through, creating a glow. Here, the separation of the internal landscape of the mind and external reveals the natural world, of barriers and boundaries, the near and the far. The line is that shimmer, that resonance, the mirage; it is the space and place where we become aware of vision, or the fallibility, and the tricks it may play on us.
Jessica Loughin in her Adelaide studio, 2022. Photograph: Rachel Harris. Courtesy Sabbia Gallery, Sydney
