Brett Manley
Artist’s Statement.
My work comes in many forms, mainly reached by trying to resolve questions and elucidate curiosities about glass.
I love experimenting and the unexpected quirks that making kiln formed glass throws up. I use the magical nature of glass to make the two dimensional into three dimensions: layering the glass and showing the spaces in between and within the glass, between the surfaces, inside the edges. I also love exposing glass’s light transmitting qualities; using its ability to obscure, reflect, project, reveal and alter to create optical illusion kinetic effects and other simpler pieces. Swinging from clear ghostly simplicity to vivid boiled sweetie colours, and opaque flats to twinkling light spangled clears in my glass work, I reveal the changing hues of colour as the glass angles move or alter depth.
Playing with glass is playing with light and colour. What could be better?
As Dannie Abse said: “Art is a game only if you play at it, a mirror that reflects from the inside out.”
I often work in series and in hugely differing scales, from my jewellery to my “Glassscape” installation of 28 x 32 metres and 28 tonnes of blue recycled glass. My inspiration can be material led, but also comes from nature, gut emotions and an overwhelming need to create. I use paint, paper, drawing, found objects, collage, textiles, intense staring, my collections, travel and my photography to gather and develop new ideas, and the art of creative gathering to inspire. These devices of inspiration become part of my art. In essence, a lifetime of habits and patterns are being developed to suit my art.