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

Fast Life Neon @ m2 Gallery

XX Mon. YYYY

Fast Life is a collaboration between graphic designer Jacob Pramuk and product designer Leonard Velich. The project started about two years ago when they combined a graphic drawing, a functional product and the old craft of neon sign making to create a unique combination of art, light and function. The goal was to create handcrafted art objects that are not only visual pieces but also functional lighting products.

Solo Exhibition @ m2 Gallery

XX Mon. YYYY

UNPUBLISHED [and rarely seen] WORKS

THURSDAY 13th- MONDAY 17th SEPTEMBER 2018

Apart from a small two-person show at Glass Artists/Gauge Gallery in Glebe in 2016, this is my first solo for many years. The exhibition will comprise Works on Paper, Collage/Assemblage and Stained Glass.

Technically many of the works are not "Unpublished" at all, since they
feature on this website. But they have not been exhibited in a physical gallery before, hence the title. Some have had one or two outings in the past couple of decades, in group shows around the country, and three damaged works have been especially restored for this show. There will be one completely new work in stained glass.

m2 Gallery is located at 450 Elizabeth Street, Surry Hills, not far up the hill from my workshop at Central. It is a well-managed hire-space that has featured some excellent artists over the past few years. I will be in attendance for the 5x days of the show so if you are in Sydney please make an effort to drop in between 9am - 6.30 pm Thursday- Monday.

A Tour of the Studio

XX Mon. YYYY

Last Saturday Diana Giese hosted a tour of stained glass in Sydney through Mosman Community College. The group looked at the beautiful windows of St John's Anglican Church in Paddington and St Benedict's Catholic Church at Broadway before heading to the Fish Markets for lunch. Then it was on to my place to view a stained glass practitioner in his studio and learn about the processes involved in making a window.

Karla Whitmore, who took the photo above, far right, was the stained glass historian accompanying the tour. She explained to the group some of the intricacies of the windows they were viewing. The other photos in this collection are by Daphne and Dom Gonzalves, the regular 'archivists' of the group. Diana leads 4x tours per year, each one focusing on a different aspect of Sydney.

By all accounts the group of 30x people enjoyed themselves immensely. It was a bit of a squeeze but after tidying up the place all through the previous week I managed to accommodate everyone, explaining all the various processess involved, starting with the making of art glass. Although I was quite exhausted afterward, it was a privilege and a pleasure to show the group around.

Karla Whitmore is a very knowledgable stained glass historian with several articles published on Ray Brown's website Stained Glass Australia.

The lively Diana Giese is an accomplished publisher and historian, with a collection held in the National Library of Australia. The group were just as fascinated by the building itself, with some venturing up onto the roof to view the graffiti gallery there, although the weather wasn't so great.

Bennett @ Soldiers' Road

XX Mon. YYYY

Curator Daniel O'Toole has done it again with a brilliant solo exhibition by a young Surry Hills artist named Bennett. Their third show since opening earlier this year, Soldiers' Road Gallery goes from strength to strength, bringing a high level of professionalism to what is essentially an underground Artist Run Initiative on the 4th floor of a rambling warehouse inhabited by artists, musicians and rats.

These mixed media works show a surprising level of maturity for a young artist. They are pared back and beautifully restrained, satisfying yet simultaneously leaving you aching for more. I could live with every one of these images and relish the patina of the burnished surfaces and tiny sgraffito scratchings and minute but spare detail.

This body of work represents a paradigm shift for Bennett, with his earlier work apparently brightly coloured and quite 'pop'-y, so it will be very interesting to see where these explorations in cool retro imagery take him next.