AMILTON D E S I G N G L A S S The artwork of Jeffrey Hamilton

Jeff Manning at the Shop Gallery, Glebe

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Two exhibitions of interest currently showing in Glebe Point Road: firstly "Recent Paintings" by Jeff Manning at the The Shop Gallery.

Jeff Manning is an accomplished painter, working primarily in the magical realist style. He has collaborated with well known leadlighter Greville Wilton on several occasions to produce stained glass windows for local Churches in the New England region and in this instance the two have produced a charming suite of stained glass panels illustrating acrobats, dancers and other figures from Jeff's oeuvre.

Manning has learned much from his association with Wilton and their experience with Church stained glass work, clearly evident in the painted decoration deployed in these quirky glass panels. I particularly enjoyed the exploration of 19th Century floral backgrounds: these locate the contemporary, stylised figures within a traditional stained glass canon creating an interesting juxtaposition. Whereas the fisherman and the waitress are to my eye not as successful, harking more toward the naive style of 1970's leadlight revival which occurred throughout the USA. Merely my opinion, of course. The small detail of a bowl of spaghetti in "The Waitress" however is brilliant.

HIGHLIGHTS at Glass Artists Gallery

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The Ranamok Glass Prize was an annual, acquisitive touring exhibition of contemporary studio glass from Australia and New Zealand. Constituted in 1994 this will be its final year: the collection of winning entries is to be donated to the National Gallery. In support of the 2014 Ranamok exhibition the Glass Artists Gallery of Glebe is showing a selection of work by those artists who have been selected as finalists in Ranamok over the past two decades.

I've recently been creating a new body of work: painted and fired blown glass vessels. The first two sets of three vessels went over to Perth for the Ausglass exhibition Flair. With my third series of three I was selected as a finalist in the 2014 Ranamok. This is a prestigious exhibition and I was certainly pleased to have been selected. As a consequence I have a triptych of painted and fired stained glass panels on display as part of Highlights at the Glass Artists Gallery this month.

VIBE: Jeffrey Hamilton & Bek Rice @ Gauge Glass Artists Gallery

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Just opened last weekend: an exhibition of 5x of my works alongside a collection of pastel drawings and prints by Bek Rice featuring the local Glebe and Leichhardt areas. The link is the vibrancy and colour of the works, echoing the vibe of the area.

The Director of Glass Artists Gallery, Maureen Cahill recently moved the glass exhibition area up one level while maintaining the street level as an exhibition space available for hire. She will also curate occasional shows there herself (such as this one).

Sunday 6th July saw a good number of people arrive at the gallery to join in conversation with myself and Bek Rice. The Director Maureen Cahill firstly introduced us both and explained some historical associations and the rationale for the show. This was Bek's first time speaking to a group about her work but she handled it with aplomb, clearly demonstrating the passion that she has for her practice.

After some questions I took the floor with a brief background to my life as an artist, followed by some detailed analysis of the works on display and the making processes involved. There was some lively discusion, with some interesting questions and comments form the audience- many of whom were of course themselves arts practitioners.