ANN ROBINSON

ANN ROBINSONCELEBRATING THE RECESSIONPreview: Friday 13th November from 5:30pmArtist Talk: Saturday 14th November 11:30am

M i l f o r d G a l l e r i e s D u n e d i n18 Dowling St (03) 477 7727 www.milfordgalleries.co.nz

14th NOVEMBER - 14th DECEMBER 2009

cast glass, size (v x ø): 365 x 469 mm

1

DETAIL VIEW

1

cast glass, size (v x h x d): 491 x 216 x 210 mm

2

DETAIL VIEW

2


3

DETAIL VIEW

3


4

DETAIL VIEW

4


5

DETAIL VIEW

5


6

DETAIL VIEW

6


7

DETAIL VIEW

7


8

DETAIL VIEW

8


9

DETAIL VIEW

9


10

DETAIL VIEW

10


11

DETAIL VIEW

11

ANN ROBINSON - Celebrating the Recession

1 65,000ANN ROBINSON, Antipodean Bowl (2009)

2 35,000ANN ROBINSON, Nikau (2009)

3 40,000ANN ROBINSON, Landscape Bowl (2009)

4 45,000ANN ROBINSON, Divaricate (2009)

5 25,000ANN ROBINSON, Flax Vase (2009)

6 25,000ANN ROBINSON, Spiral Vase (2009)

7 35,000ANN ROBINSON, Agathis (2009)

8 25,000ANN ROBINSON, Side Carved Flax Pod (2009)

9 29,000ANN ROBINSON, Curved Vase (2009)

10 29,000ANN ROBINSON, Scallop Bowl (2009)

11 45,000ANN ROBINSON, Wide Bowl (2009)

In “Celebrating the Recession” Ann Robinson presents a substantial body of work –

almost a complete survey of the primary bowl and vase forms of her career.

Revealed by this are a number of fundamental continuums in her work – explicit

environmental dialogues and references; the rigorous pursuit of the essence and

purity of form; a broad cultural context and a South Pacific sensibility.

The exhibition title “Celebrating the Recession” is both a witty, wry reference to the

recent economic environment and openly acknowledges one of the key stylistic

devices of her work. Robinson uses space, set-back or indented. Forms slope

backwards, and retreat. In this way, many of Robinson’s objects alter shape and

substance as we view them.

Equally fundamental to her work is the use of intersecting lines – curved and linear –

and the role performed by glass mass and how this interacts with light. Robinson

employs colour with assurance and restraint but with a naturalistic, referential

language.

The apparent simplicity of the “Landscape Bowl” belies and hides a purity of form in

which the shape slides away and folds to understated rhythms. The astonishing

“Divaricate” while the same form has an entirely different language in which the

intricately worked surface has been decorated with raised branches and polished

leaves. The naturalism of this is further explored with colour that is strongly suggestive

of autumn or reminds one of kauri gum.

Robinson has also sourced key elements of her stylistic vocabulary from the natural

(botanical) world and through a process of pattern refinement and simplification –

including scale exaggeration and repetition – built a language that carries the visual

weight of her forms with sympathetic ease. The “Flax Vase” leaves rise up stacked

upon each other as if a cross-section. The tonal balance and deftness of her use of

colour across the works is equally significant and apparent. In the beautiful and

resolute “Nikau” and “Agathis” vases complex sensations are established by the

alteration of glass mass and leaf pattern reversals.

Glass is a medium like no other – it has an internal (dimensional) space we can see

and it interacts with light in innumerable ways. It changes character and nature – call

it tone and substance – with the amount or restriction of light, as well as the viewing

angle. The utterly extraordinary, magnificent “Antipodean Bowl” is recognisably based

upon a kava bowl – (and thus has a visual context of celebration, ritual and

ceremony) but Robinson has introduced to this metaphysical concerns by restricting

the colour so that it seems about to hover or levitate from the juncture of the legs

and yet the base of the bowl points resolutely to the earth and thus grounds it.

The flared, slightly twisted, rising form of the “Curved Vase” is a triumph of refined

elegance. As the viewer’s eye reaches the four corners of the rising and falling lip

Robinson has introduced a vane sculptural detail that is a design tour de force.

The “Spiral Vase” whilst obviously the same form as the “Flax Vase” is another powerful

example of Robinson’s innate ability to carry a carved line. In this – as in almost all of

her work – we can feel the maker’s hand and mind at work, and view a sensibility in

action that has been informed by a South Pacific tribal, agrarian aesthetic and belief

that any object must declare its functionality, its reason for being, just as readily as it

emerges from a continuum of European design and purity of form. It is these

alliances which are built into the languages and innumerable achievements of her

work, and undeniably evident everywhere throughout this major exhibition.

Ann Robinson is acknowledged as one of the great glass artists of the world and

indisputably New Zealand’s leading exponent of cast glass. Her work has received

numerous national and international awards, widespread and on-going critical

acclaim.

Side Carved Flax Bowl (2009)

Ann Robinson 2010 CV Milford Galleries Dunedin www.milfordgalleries.co.nz

ANN ROBINSON b. 1944, lives Auckland

EDUCATION 1980 DipFA, University of Auckland

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2009 Celebrating the Recession, Milford Galleries Dunedin, Dunedin

2008 Divaricate, FHE Galleries, Kitchener St, Auckland

A Trans Tasman Sampler, Axia Modern Art, Melbourne, Australia

2006 Ann Robinson, R Duane Reed, ST Louis, Missouri, USA

2005 A Sombre Take, FHE G2 Galleries, Auckland

2002-03 Pacific Rim: Ann Robinson's Glass, Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tongarewa,

Wellington

2001 Ann Robinson: Light from New Zealand, Gallerie Jean Claude Chapellotte, Luxembourg

2000 Old Zeal: New Zeal, Axia Modern Art, Melbourne, Australia

1999 Adrift, Elliott Brown Gallery, Seattle, Washington, USA

1998 Ann Robinson, Casting Light: A Survey of Glass Castings 1981-1997, Dowse Art Museum

Wellington and New Gallery, Auckland

1997 Tall Poppies, Lopdell House Gallery, Waitakere

A Point in Time, Masterworks Gallery, Auckland

1995 Ann Robinson: A Survey, Elliott Brown Gallery, Seattle, Washington, USA

1994 Ann Robinson at Masterworks, Masterworks Gallery, Auckland

Galerie L, Hamburg, Germany

From Fantasy to Function V, Kurts Bingham Gallery, Memphis, Tennessee, USA

1993 Ann Robinson, Grand opening of Elliott Brown Gallery, Seattle, Washington, USA

1992 Masterworks Gallery, Parnell, Auckland

1984 Artisan Centre, Auckland

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2009 Luminaries, Sabia Gallery, Sydney, Australia

Masterworks, milford galleries queenstown

2006 111, with Elizabeth McClure and Emily Siddell, FHE Galleries, Auckland

Contemporary Glass, Group Show, Masterworks Gallery, Auckland

2005 Garden Varieties, with Bronwyn Cornish and Fran Allison, Masterworks Gallery, Auckland

Axia Modern Art, Sydney, Australia

Glass Invitational, Milford Galleries Dunedin, Milford Galleries Queenstown, traveling to

Auckland Museum, Auckland, Pataka, Petone, and Canterbury Museums, Christchurch

2003-04 Southern Exposure, NZ Soc of Artists in Glass traveling exhibition to Ebeltof, Denmark.

2003 Is As, Landscape as a Metaphor, Milford Galleries Dunedin, Dunedin

2002 Glass Invitational, Touring exhibition, Milford Galleries Dunedin, Dunedin

2001 Transparent Things, National Gallery of Australia in partnership with the Wagga Wagga

Regional Art Gallery, Australia

2000 Creativity and Collaboration, Pilchuck Glass School's 30 Years, Bumbershoot 2000 Seattle

Center, Seattle, Washington, USA

1999 New Zealand Glass, Axia Modern Art, Melbourne, Australia

1997 Inaugural Exhibition, John Elder Gallery, New York, USA

Art in Glass '97, Editions Gallery, Melbourne, Australia

Ledbetter Lusk Gallery, Memphis, Tennessee, USA

Elliott Brown Gallery, Seattle, WA (w/ Frantisek Vizner and Daniel Clayman)

1996 Introductions VII, Lisa Kurts Gallery, Memphis, Tennessee, USA

Celia Kennedy Gallery, Queenstown

Mastercast, Glass Artist Gallery, Sydney, Australia

On Form, Lopdell house Gallery, Waitakere

SOFA Miami Exposition, Elliott Brown Gallery, Seattle, Washington, USA

1995 The Vessel Aesthetic, Kavesh Gallery, Ketchum, Idaho, USA

A Powerful Presence: Pilchuck Glass School’s 25 Years, Bumbershoot, Rainier Room at the


Seattle Center, Seattle, Washington, USA

1994 Breaking the Mold: New Kilnformed Glass, Heller Gallery, Palm Beach, Florida, USA

Glass from the Pacific Rim, Art Department Gallery, San Francisco State University, San

Francisco, California, USA

1993 Parriott, Perkins and Robinson, Chicago International New Art Forms Exposition a Navy Pier,

Chicago, Illinois, USA (Kate Elliott Contemporary Glass)

Annual Pilchuck Exhibition, William Traver Gallery, Seattle, Washington, USA

Pilchuck Glass Exhibition, SeaTac Airport, Seattle, Washington, USA

1992 Cribbs, Marioni and Robinson, Chicago International New Art Forms Exposition at Navy Pier,

Chicago, Illinois, USA (Kate Elliott Contemporary Glass)

Contemporary Kilnformed Glass, Contemporary Crafts Centre Portland, Oregon, USA

Glass Now ‘92, Tokyo, Japan

International Directions in Glass, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, Australia

Treasures of the Underworld, Seville, Spain

1991 The Executive Suite, Crafts Council Gallery, Wellington

New Zealand Glass Review, Compendium Gallery, Auckland

1990 New Zealand Crafts Council, Wellington

1989-91 Australian Kilnformed Glass, touring the USA; Kurland/Summers Gallery, Los Angeles, CA;

Heller Gallery, New York; Habatat Gallery, Detroit, USA

1988 Australian Kilnformed Glass, An International Exhibition, Craft Council Gallery of ACT,

Australia

World Glass Now ‘88, Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art, Hokkaido, Japan

Stones in Glass Houses, Villas Gallery, Wellington

New Zealand Expo Exposition of Craft, Brisbane, Australia

1987 Winstone Biennale, Auckland Museum, Auckland

1986 Phillips Glass Exhibition, Auckland Museum, Auckland

Sunbeam Glassworks, Dowse Art Museum, Lower Hutt, Wellington

1983 Glass ‘83, touring New Zealand

1982 Fragile Art, Northern Regional Crafts Council, touring New Zealand

1981 Glass ‘81, Auckland Society of Arts, Auckland

HONORS, AWARDS, SCHOLARSHIPS, COMMISSIONS, APPOINTMENTS

2009 Installed commissioned Font, Holy Trinity Cathedral, Auckland

2006 Life Time Achievement Award by the Glass Arts Society of America

2006 Waitakere City Arts Laureate Award

2004 2004 Arts Laureate Awarded by the Arts Foundation of New Zealand

2003 Guest speaker Northlands Glass Conference of CGA

2002 Elected recipient of the D.I.N.Z. 'John Britten Award' for contribution to Design

2001 Awarded the Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit. ( O.N.Z.M)

Guest speaker Conference ‘Transparency in Glass’, Victoria and Albert Museum, London

2000 Faculty; Pilchuck Glass School, Stanwood, Washington, USA



“Treasures from the Underworld,” commission for New Zealand Expo Exhibition, Seville, Spain

1990, 92 93 Guest Faculty; Carrington Polytechnic, Auckland

1990, 92 Guest Faculty; Canberra School of Art, ACT, Australia

1987 Winstone Biennale Award

1986 Phillips Glass Award

Travel Grant to USA, Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council

1984 Phillips Glass Award

1983, 84, 91 Equipment Grant, Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council

COLLECTIONS

Auckland Museum, Auckland

Bellevue Public Library, Bellevue WA, USA

Corning Museum of Glass, Corning NY, USA

Dowse Gallery, Lower Hutt


Irvin J. Borowsky, Philadelphia, PA

Karen Johnson Boyd, Racine, Wisconsin

Robert McDougal Gallery, Christchurch

Microsoft Corp, Redmond, WA, USA

National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

National Museum of New Zealand, Wellington

Queensland Art Gallery, Queensland, Australia

Stadtmuseum, Gottingen, Gemany

Saint Paul Companies, Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA

Victoria and Albert Museum, London, U.K.

SELECTED ARTICLES

2010 Wood, D, Ann Robinson: Casting Mistress, Neues Glas, Spring 2010 (1/10),pp 32 - 39

2008 Chappell, Dan, Defining Light and Space, Art News, Spring, pp 57-58 (attached)

2003 Simpson Peter (FOA ENG), An Act of Love, Art New Zealand

2001 Object Lessons,Original Art by Guild Artists, Beauty and Meaning in Art. Guild Publishing,

Madison, U.S.A., pp 22

2001 Klein, Dan Artists In Glass: Late Twentieth Century Masters In Glass Mitchell Beazley Millers,

Octopus Publishing Group, London, England, pp 197-198.

1999 In Review New Glass Review, Corning Museum of Glass,2/00, pp 104 - 111

1998 Edwards, Geoffrey Art Of Glass, Glass in the Collection of the National Gallery of Victoria,

National Gallery of Victoria pg 204

1998 Ann Robinson Casting Light,.A Survey of Glass Castings 1981-1997, Dowse Art Museum, Lower

Hutt, New Zealand

1996 Wichert, Geoffrey, Glass, No 65, Winter, pp. 36-39

1994 Kangas, Matthew, Glass, No 55, Spring, pp 51

1996 Layton, Peter, Glass Art, pp. 64, (illus) pp 65.

1993 New Glass Review, Corning Museum of Glass, pp 92.

1993 Sapolin, Donna, Glass Conscienceness Departures, April/May 1993, pp 76-81, (illus) pp 78

1992 Contemporary Kilnformed Glass, Contemporary Crafts Association, Portland, Oregon; pp 64-65

1992/1 Shamroth, Helen, Glass Art in New Zealand Neues Glass Magazine, pp 40-46

1989 Klein, Dan, Glass: A Contemporary Art Rizzoli; pp 208

1989 Australia Kilnformed Glass; Australia Council for the Arts and Kurland/Summers Gallery; pp. 16-17

1988 World Glass Now '88, Hokkaido Museum, Japan

1988 Ioannou, Norris, Australian Studio Glass, pp 80-92

Wide Bowl (2009)

ANN ROBINSON

Documents

Transcript of ANN ROBINSON