Michelle Stewart
Michelle Stewart — 'Carpet Memories II', 2025
'Carpet Memories II', a glass sculpture from Melbourne based glass artist Michelle Stewart which forms part of the Glass Futures, a collection of works produced during an intensive masterclass at r.a.g.e let by renowned glass artist Giles Bettison and artist-educator Lienors Torre.
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Michelle has completed an Advanced Diploma in Engineering Jewellery at NMIT (now Melbourne Polytechnic) in 2011, a Bachelor of Fine Art with first class honours in 2017 at RMIT University, Melbourne, and is currently a PhD candidate at RMIT undertaking a creative dissertation researching the ‘Phenomena of the Forest’. Her contemporary jewellery and glasswork have been selected for shows in Australia, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium and North America, with her recycled glass work also winning an award in Venice, Italy. She spent a year at The Glasgow School of Art as an Artist in Residence in 2018-19 and this year completed the Bundanon Artist Residency in NSW. With an environmental bias that explores notions of health, connectivity and symbiotic relationships, Michelle works in glass, using pâte de verre and lampworking techniques blended with her metal working skills to create contemporary jewellery works, small sculpture and installation works.
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Glass Futures
September 18 – November 1
Glass Futures presents a collection of works produced during an intensive masterclass at r.a.g.e, led by renowned glass artist Giles Bettison and artist-educator Lienors Torre. This body of work showcases how participants engaged with the intricacies of pattern and form in glass, inspired by the centuries-old Venetian tradition of murrine. Working with Bullseye sheet glass rather than traditional furnace glass, participants developed a contemporary take on this technique under Bettison’s tutelage. Once vessels were formed in the hot shop, Torre introduced various coldworking processes, allowing for intricate surface refinement and the elevation of each work to a new level of clarity and expression.
At its heart, Glass Futures is a dialogue between tradition and innovation. Anchored in the lineage of Australian studio glass, this exhibition celebrates the transfer of material knowledge to a new generation of makers. The resulting works embody the rhythm of process — layered, fused, shaped and carved — revealing glass as a medium that is at once enigmatic and precise.
For participants at different stages in their careers, this masterclass was both a technical and artistic threshold: an invitation to refine skill whilst articulating an individual voice. Together, the works in Glass Futures testify to the vitality of independent glass education in Australia, offering a glimpse into the bold and evolving future of the medium.
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, as well as generous support from Bullseye Glass, Craft Victoria, and r.a.g.e.
Artist List – Eva Alisic, Ruth Allen, Giles Bettison, Laura de Carteret, Nick Doran Adams, Cheryl Edwards, Juniper Maffescioni, Clare Millar, Elizabeth Parsons, Nicole Polentas, Michelle Stewart, Lienors Torre, Keely Varmalis
Read more about the exhibition here:
Material: Bullseye glass
Dimensions: Approx 17 x 10 x 10cm
Please note when purchasing, exhibition works are to be collected when exhibition closes.
Shipping costs may be estimates. Please feel free to contact shop@craft.org.au who will be available to provide an Art Courier quote or shipping costs for larger items.