26 February 1998: Three large-scale public art commissions for the National Glass Centre in Sunderland, England, were announced recently. The work will be funded by the National Lottery (through the A…
26 February 1998: Three large-scale public art commissions for the National Glass Centre in Sunderland, England, were announced recently. The work will be funded by the National Lottery (through the Arts Council of England) and the Tyne & Wear Development Corporation. The total works are expected to be completed in time for the opening of the National Glass Centre in Sunderland on 20 June 1998, and the exhibition is expected to attract some 1 million people each year. The artists, who were chosen after international advertising, are Laura Johnston, Bridget Jones and a partnership between Professor Zora Palov and Stepn Pala. Johnston has had some of her work exhibited in Sunderland, London and Moscow. She is a previous winner of the Charlie Bray Glass Prize for outstanding achievement, and has also won 3 awards from Northern Arts and a Setting Up grant from the Crafts Council. Johnston will be designing a series of 80 1-metre-long dichroic glass objects to be suspended from the roof of the building, resembling a school of fish floating from the reception area towards the upper balcony. Palov is Professor of Glass at the University of Sunderland. She and her partner Stepn Pala come from Bratislava in the Slovak Republic, and their works can be seen in the Slovak National Gallery, in the Shimonoseki Museum of Art, Japan, in Rotterdam and in the Hague. They will be making a 15 hundred weight coloured lens made of lead glass with a rough surface. The lens will be held by 2 parallel optical prisms that will also reflect light onto the lens. Jones, a graduate of Sunderland University, has won 2 awards from Northern Arts, and she will be making 18 stained glass interpretation panels for the Sunderland Room in the Glass Centre. The panels will show the history of glass-making, Sunderlands oldest industry, from 674 AD to the present. Alan Sykes, the National Glass Centres Head of Communications, said, “We have always been determined to use glass artists wherever possible. Thanks to help from the Tyne & Wear Development Corporation, and from Matthew Jarrett, the City Councils Public Art Officer, we have been able to attract some world class artists who will make some really exciting and beautiful works to go with our exciting and beautiful new building.” For further information on this event, please contact: The National Glass Centre (UK) +44(0)191-515 5555