Visual Art / Stilleven, Rose-Mary Faulkner. At ANCA Gallery until June 1. Reviewed by BRIAN ROPE.

Stilleven exhibits works by glass artist Rose-Mary Faulkner, considering connections to places and objects as both self-portraiture and representative of lived experience and narrative.

Softly focused compositions of domestic settings form an avenue to explore dynamics of the absence and presence of people and bodies, connection to environments we embody and the way objects can exist as metaphors.

Faulkner graduated from the Australian National University School of Art & Design, Glass Workshop, with a Bachelor of Visual Arts in 2015 and then with first class honours in 2016. Since then, her work has been exhibited widely – in Australia, Berlin, America and Japan. It has been acquired for the Wagga Wagga National Art Glass Gallery collection. The artist works as an arts educator and creates art at Canberra Glassworks and in her home studio, which she shares with her partner and glass artist, Rob Schwartz.

Domesticity, and artworks depicting inanimate objects found in domestic situations, are domains that have historically been disregarded. The Dutch-origin term “stilleven” means inanimate objects. However, disguised symbolism means domestic objects can be extremely significant revealing the narrative of people’s lives, bearing witness to time and change. That is why many of us value, and display in our own homes, precious objects inherited from our forebears.

Faulkner transfers images on to kiln-formed glass. She layers several related images before further manipulating the surface and form through multiple fusing or cold working. This expands the imagery beyond the original photograph as the transparency of glass enhances layering for the purpose of depth and overlapping.

One particularly delightful work, Snowdon (a study) is a diptych about a much-loved farm house which, I believe, has been in the artist’s family for many generations.

For me the most interesting piece in the show is an artwork comprising 32 separate still life compositions gathered from women in her extended family and artists network of friends. Each contributor provided photographs of objects or spaces in their own homes which Faulkner has fused into glass. The images are from women who range in age from 20 to 89. They live in Australia, America and the United Kingdom. The catalogue describes the collection of pieces as a kind of still life portraiture. This fabulous artwork is a created composition revealing a great deal about women’s experiences despite (or because of) the contents being domestic.

There are also a number of works featuring bent glass forms which, again, are about inanimate objects.

The exhibition essay by Jacqueline Bradley is a beautifully written piece, well worth reading in conjunction with a visit to the exhibition. Bradley speaks of Faulkner’s “deep consideration of the still life genre, shifting between the formal and symbolic, the private and personal.”