Join us for the opening event at ANCA Gallery Wednesday 14 May from 5.30pm

Stilleven by Rose-Mary Faulkner

Rose-Mary Faulkner, Six oranges and a Saturday morning ritual, 2024, kiln formed glass with decals, 30 x 20 x 1cm.

Stilleven is an exhibition of glass work by 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.

Rose-Mary Faulkner, Snowdon (a study), 2023, kiln formed glass with decals.

The domestic and the still life are two realms that have been historically dismissed. Still life throughout art history has often been regarded as the lowest rank of art expression; the term stilleven drawn from the origins of the still life genre in Dutch meaning no more than inanimate objects. However cultural, economic, and theological disguised symbolism makes them deeply important in portraying the narrative or depiction of people’s lives, the inanimate objects bearing witness to change and time and the nature of the human experience. Similarly, the domestic has and regularly still is, regarded as undervalued and a woman’s realm, holding items associated with acts of service and care. Stilleven explores the familiarity and femininity of these themes—as ones that hold importance, narrative and deep meaning despite appearing simplistic or ordinary, considering intersections of contemporary and classic. Using processes of kiln formed glass and hand bent neon lighting, Rose-Mary seeks to depict what is all at once familiar, challenging and precious, in amongst the subtle rhythms of daily life.

Rose-Mary Faulkner, Two vessels in light, 2024, hand bent neon with argon mercury gas, dimensions variable.

Rose-Mary Faulkner is a glass and print artist based in Canberra, on Ngunnawal and Ngambri land. She graduated with first class honours from the Australian National University School of Art and Design in 2016. Since graduating, her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including in the USA, Berlin and Toyama, and has been acquired as part of the national glass collection at the Wagga Wagga National Art Glass Gallery. In 2024 Rose-Mary was commissioned to make a permanent public artwork for No Name Lane as part of the Canberra Art Biennial. Rose-Mary works as an arts educator, and creates work both at Canberra Glassworks and her home studio which she shares with her partner and glass artist, Rob Schwartz.