This new glass sculpture, 12 Hours of Daylight, by Canberra artist Hannah Gason, is now on display at the Canberra Centre. It was commissioned to celebrate Floriade 2023. Photo: Supplied.
When Canberra artist Hannah Gason was invited to create a glass installation to celebrate Floriade 2023, one of the first things she did was visit the Canberra Centre.
No, shopping was not on her agenda. Rather she went to the centre, on regular recces, to check out the glass floor outside Zara – from every possible angle – the site where her large work was to be installed.
It was never going to be just any sort of installation. Where people walked and what they could see were just two of many considerations that had to be taken into account.
Ms Gason said she took many photographs, from various positions, to see how the artwork would look in such a public, busy place.
The work, 12 Hours of Daylight, is made up of a set of glass sculptures that celebrate the colour and beauty of Canberra’s famous flower festival.
A graduate of the Australian National University’s School of Art in 2015, with a Bachelor of Visual Arts with Honours, Ms Gason was also awarded the University Medal.
Since then, she has been an artist-in-residence at the Bullseye Glass Company in the United States, a visiting artist at Berlin Glas, a teaching assistant at the Corning Museum of Glass and participant at North Lands Creative Glass in Scotland. She currently works from her studio at the Canberra Glassworks.
The Floriade work is one of the largest installations she has created. And although she has experimented with other mediums, Ms Gason always comes back to glass.
“There is just nothing like it,” she said. “I never get tired of working with glass. I have worked with other materials and can get something out of them, but I always come back to glass.
“It is the one material that can convey my ideas with light the best. There is nothing like watching how glass and light interact, you can create so much with it.”
For 12 Hours of Daylight, Ms Gason said she combined a variety of techniques to interplay glass, light and artistic expression.
She said the work was inspired by the floral fields of Floriade, with the sculpture featuring transparent and opaque glass fused together to create layers and lines, designed to capture how nature transformed the environment.
Canberra glass artist Hannah Gason at work in the Canberra Glassworks. Photo: Supplied.
“Framing the glass in position is a spring field of grasses and flowers,” she said. “Whether reflecting the delicate petals of a flower or the vibrant hues of a rainbow, each artwork in this exhibition tells a unique story of the profound connection between colours, flowers and the magical world of glass and light.”
The artist said incorporating light and colour was her major focus for this work. Using overlapping patterns she has produced a network of illusions that capture this year’s Floriade’s theme, Floral Wonderland.
“Rich colours reminiscent of liquid ink are employed, and when light passes through them, they become intensified and ethereal, evoking a sense of wonder and awe,” she said.
The work will stay at the Canberra Centre until the end of Floriade when it will go on display at the Canberra Museum and Gallery.
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