Sally Fawkes
“Casting with clear optical glass, I work with transparent volume, an expression for space. Space is where all is potential and all is actualised. The agglomeration of the conscious, unconscious and unforeseeable. Navigating the complex layers of our actions and interactions I am exploring the metaphoric possibilities of place. The rhythms of our multi layered existence; both visible and invisible emerge as harmonious ‘living spaces’. energised by light."
Working in Gloucestershire
1987 Southend College of Technology, Southend, Foundation Course
1995-1998 Surrey Institute of Art and Design, BA (Hons) First Class 3D Design – Glass
1998 Colour and Form Masterclass with Meike Groot and Richard Price, Northlands Creative Glass, Caithness, Scotland
1998–2001 Studio Assistant, Colin Reid Glass
2001 Established Independent studio
“My artworks offer layers of visual information for contemplation, crafted through a combination of form, carved texture, surface mark making, mirrored planes and more recently colour. My making is informed by researching and recording environments through history and the contemporary exploring the spiritual and physical, the visible and invisible, a concept or an event. Working with geometry as a starting point, my approach to form is rooted in the idea of fusing the organic and the man made resulting in strong rhythmical forms that appeal to the senses. Striving to reveal a fourth dimension in my three dimensional artworks has manifested in my use of mirror, consciously chosen for its globally rich symbolism relating to knowledge. The Latin word for mirror, ‘speculum’ gives us the verb to speculate. The viewer is invited in to experience and explore.”
Sally Fawkes is a material based sculptor whose primary material is cast glass. Her work explores the intersections between the intangible and the physically apparent. An image floating displaced on a horizon that is itself distorted by distance and haze. A space where multiple histories hint at past lives and happenings. The wonder of sunlight breaking through the tree canopy, creating infinite light patterns on what is below. All these things can be observed in Fawkes’s glass sculpture as well as the experiences you bring from your own memory and transplant into her sculptures.
Her research encompasses sensory response and interactions with places and spaces; physical space, and or a concept in space. She records historical and contemporary interests through drawing, painting and photography.
Her transparent optical casts of glass become the core of her three dimensional narratives that she works to highly polished surfaces, adding layers of engraving, textures and deep carving to provide a richness of language that holds the attention and begs further investigation. Her trademark application of mirrored surfaces add a further layer of complexity and animation that delight in confusing and beguiling the eye whilst also giving her the opportunity to paint on a reverse surface. The resulting surface colours and textures give voice to more layers of information and inevitably you are drawn in to explore further.
Sally Fawkes has work in the following public collections:
Cowdy Gallery Glass Collection, Newent, Gloucestershire
Crafts Council, London
Guildford Cathedral Education Centre, Guildford
The Faringdon Collection, Buscot Park, Oxfordshire
The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh
Shipley Art Gallery, Gateshead, Tyne & Wear
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Musée de Verre, Charleroi, Belgium
MusVerre, Sars-Poteries, France
Museo de Arte Contemporáneo en Vidrio de Alcorcón, Madrid, Spain
Musée cantonal de design et d’arts appliques contemporains, Lausanne, Switzerland