Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum reopens its doors with an exhibition celebrating the stunning work of Colin Reid. Casting Brilliance is the first exhibition to ever bring together such a significant group of Colin Reid’s exceptional glass sculpture.

Over the past 30 years he has worked with this fragile material to create exquisite works of art which intrigue and invite us to wonder at how they are made. Colin’s sculpture has an extraordinary ability to make a first-time viewer stop and be drawn in to look carefully again and again. His brilliance has given him the cutting edge in kiln-cast glass and international recognition for his inspirational work. By using glass in innovative ways there are optical illusions within the pieces that you see he creates pieces which play tricks as you move round them. With casts taken from familiar objects inside, for example fruit and vegetables, with opaque and reflective glass they become both majestic and magical.

Casting Brilliance provides a unique opportunity to see the progression of Colin’s work from his early days to the present. In the early 1980s he moved to Gloucestershire to set up his studio and continues to make work there always developing new ideas through experimentation to create breathtaking pieces of varying scale ranging from small objects to larger commissions for public spaces. The exhibition shows work from each stage of Colin’s career and includes new pieces specifically made for Casting Brilliance.

For the first time visitors to the exhibition will be able to see some of the processes Colin uses, including moulds and castings which are beautiful objects in their own right. As an integral part of the exhibition this will give an insight into how the glass is transformed from slab a block to work of art.

A specially commissioned film created by filmmaker William Taylor brings the exhibition to life taking visitors inside Colin’s studio. Also coming out to coincide with the exhibition Lund Humphries are publishing the first Colin Reid monograph, Colin Reid Glass Sculpture, with essays by Jennifer Hawkins Opie and Diane C Wright supplemented by many beautiful images of Colin’s work.

The Wilson, Art & Craft Museum at Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum, Clarence Street, Cheltenham, GL50 3JT

http://www.cheltenhammuseum.org.uk/