The Post has been talking to New Zealand artists who showed at this year’s prestigious Sydney Contemporary, Australasia’s biggest art fair. For the final piece in our series we speak to Sydney-based Edward Waring, who grew up in Lyttelton and worked in Wellington, who unveiled a series of upcycled glassware with Gallery Sally Dan-Cuthbert.
EW: I began working with glass in 2014. I would’ve started working on these about 2016. I previously made side tables out of found crystal and glass. Someone asked me if I could do a coloured one for them, but finding coloured glass is really tricky. There’s not many good colours in op shops. I painted the inside of one, and it just worked. It was transformational.
Painting the colour with fine brushes on the inside, these beautiful weird facets emerge where the glass responds to the light. I only use the Resene 60ml pots. I never waste paint. The paint names remind me of home. My daughter loves New Zealand, and I still have family there. I go back about once a year.
Some of the pieces have 15 layers of paint. I work very slowly and leave at least 24 hours between coats to let them hard dry. It’s meditative and totally instinctive. I wait for the colour to reveal itself. It’s like a big jigsaw puzzle, except there’s no box.
My whole series of these is in honour of my mother and her wild, wonderful, vital women friends. I made the colours as bright and as vibrant as possible as a tribute. They’re all memory sticks. My mum and aunts all had precious crystal that was kept for best in china cabinets and never used.
All my stock is either from auctions or op shops, or they’re found objects. I started finding pieces of glass that were unpainted and looking kooky and dusty: candle holders, serving plates, vases, salt shakers. They transformed the light. But I thought they’d be too difficult to work with.
Initially, I went back to working with cut crystal. But with one object, I was driving away from the op shop having not bought it, and I went back because I felt I needed it. These objects are the pieces you wouldn’t even look at for normal purchase. But they just started talking to me.
This showcase is all about landscape and nature. I was looking at Colin McCahon and Rita Angus and Australian bush and flowers. I didn’t want to do posies or bunches. You can see in these works the roots, the stem, the bud. They’re very literal. I kept riffing loosely around floral ideas, and this is the end result.
They go the way they go. Sometimes I want to make a tall one. I know when they’re finished. I twist them, I spin them, I riff on them and respond to them. These objects were just too good to leave in the shop.
I have a few circuits I do. My favourite stores change. I’ve worked with found objects almost my entire practice. I love the hunt. I go to auctions every fortnight. I check everything on all the websites. I’m a tip rat. You’re looking for that little bit of gold. There’s such an excitement finding it.
The glass is lovely, but when it’s left alone in the shop there’s a sadness to it. When I find something really beautiful that still has the maker’s mark on it, like the sticker, which means it’s never been used, I think that’s sad. I’m transforming these objects. People can bring them back into their homes. These works give joy.
