JAMFACTORY Icon Jessica Loughlin’s exhibition, Of Light, opens at the Millicent Gallery Thursday, April 3 at 6pm and it promises to be an experience with Jessica on hand for a short presentation.<\/p>\n
JamFactory\u2019s ICON series celebrates the achievements of South Australia\u2019s most influential visual artists working in craft-based media.<\/p>\n
Jessica Loughlin is one of Australia\u2019s most internationally acclaimed glass artists and is renowned for her highly innovative technical approach to kiln formed glass.<\/p>\n
A studio glass artist for more than 25 years, Loughlin creates ethereal kiln formed glass artworks that explore her fascination with the beauty of emptiness and her extensive research into light and space.<\/p>\n
She has dedicated her practice to the pursuit of capturing the transient qualities of light and the quiet sense of contemplation it provokes in the viewer.<\/p>\n
Known for her understated aesthetic, Loughlin takes her artistic cues from the vast, flat landscapes and salt lakes of South Australia.<\/p>\n
She began her artistic exploration of the horizon line in her student years and is particularly drawn to the inherent quietness and stillness of the land.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo me, the Australian landscape is defined by its vast space and a sense of distance,\u201d Loughlin said. \u201cBeing out in a vast space creates stillness and space within my mind, and it is portraying this stillness that has remained a constant aim within my work.\u201d<\/p>\n
The natural splendour of the salt lakes of Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre and Lake Gairdner have long provided Loughlin with inspiration due to their infinitely immersive quality.<\/p>\n
Rarely filled with water, the minimalist landscapes of these remote salt lakes seemingly fuse land and sky as one infinite plain that completely immerses the viewer on a physical, emotional and spiritual level.<\/p>\n
“The boundary between air, water, and ground blurred,\u201d Loughlin said. \u201cLight became the landscape, and I looked down into the sky. It was as if I was suspended in space.<\/p>\n
\u201cLandscapes of space, reduced to sky, land and light, give little visual reference, nothing for the mind to hang onto \u2014 so the sensory system fires up to find a reference, to locate the body \u2014 and those references come from within.”<\/p>\n
In her glass practice, Loughlin fuses kiln formed sheets of both opaque and translucent glass together in flat panels or thin geometric freestanding pieces that allude to shadow, reflection and refraction.<\/p>\n
Her work is characterised by a strict reductive sensibility and restricted use of colour, with a gentle palette of soft muted hues and the motif of the mirage reoccurring frequently across her practice.<\/p>\n
Despite the reductive palette, however, Loughlin\u2019s glass artworks contain a spectrum of colour and detail.<\/p>\n
Made of opaline glass, Loughlin\u2019s freestanding sculptures, for example, appear milky white until they reflect light and become blue or transmit light to reveal warm orange and pinky tones.<\/p>\n
While Loughlin works with the materiality of glass it is apparent that her subject is something more intangible: seeing, experiencing and reflecting, with each piece forming a poetic statement about the nature of perception.<\/p>\n
Her artwork is often focused on providing a space for contemplation and to create a sensation of space, rather than being metaphoric or narrative in nature.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy work touches on perception, questioning what we are seeing, and allowing the viewer to be tuned in to subtlety \u2014 a piece that at first may appear white, with time changes slowly to reveal different colours,\u201d Loughlin said. \u201cSome of this is caused by the change in light \u2014 but some also by the tuning of the viewer\u2019s eye. I like playing with the quiet activation of the viewer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Intimate, infinite and immersive, Loughlin\u2019s work appeals to something in our deeper selves and provokes a particular feeling of expansive contemplation that only silence and space can provide.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel that my work is not about ideas and does not access intellect,\u201d Loughlin said. \u201cRather, my aim is to be an abstraction, to be emotive to present the feeling of stillness\u2026concentrated stillness.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Millicent Gallery has previously welcomed two icons, Claire Belfrage and Tom Moore to the Gallery and those exhibitions were outstanding and well received.<\/p>\n
JamFactory ICON Jessica Loughlin: Of Light was curated by JamFactory Curator and Exhibitions Manager Caitlin Eyre, supported by Creative Australia\u2019s Contemporary Touring Initiative.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
JAMFACTORY Icon Jessica Loughlin’s exhibition, Of Light, opens at the Millicent Gallery Thursday, April 3 at 6pm and it promises to be an experience with Jessica on hand for a short presentation. JamFactory\u2019s ICON series celebrates the achievements of South Australia\u2019s most influential visual artists working in craft-based media. Jessica Loughlin is one of Australia\u2019s […]<\/p>\n