This exhibition of works by Emma Borland presents a new series of abstract fused glass panels, kiln fired in a range of fine Aventurine, Oceanside and Youghiogheny glasses.

“This body of work explores the interaction of colour and form within the medium of glass. It recognises the relationship between the translucent, the reflective, and the opaque qualities inherent in the material. I strive to demonstrate the subtlety and tactile nature of these properties in relief. This exploration is informed by my early engagement with lead light and stained glass and its ability to transform space and place by interacting with light.

In each of these works I am creating a new language to allow the glass to express its unique aspects. This language draws from the inspiration of my father’s expression of colour and form in architecture.” Emma Borland, 2022.

The youngest daughter of celebrated Australian modernist architect, the late Kevin Borland, Emma’s early immersion in art and architecture is evidenced in these abstract forms. These works can also be traced to her late mother Margaret Borland’s personal interest and passion for Scandinavian jewellery, furniture and design. Since the outset of

her career the aesthetics of naïve and outsider art have remained central influences on Borland’s art practice. As the youngest sister of lauded artist photographer Polly Borland, both artists share an interest in psychology, vulnerability and the marginalised, which presents in both artists’ figurative and abstract works. This shared bond was highlighted in

the major two person survey Borland + Borland curated by Artistic Director Magda Keaney at Canberra Glassworks in 2015 when she claimed: “Emma Borland’s compositional devices are what I would call a ‘suggestive figuration’ where an allusion to a physicality is fundamental but in an abstracted or transformative state.”

Over the last two decades Borland has undertaken a broad formal education specialising in glass media, including a MA in Fine Art by Research (Glass), and a MA in Teaching, both at Monash University, Melbourne; early training in glass techniques and technology at the Brierley Hill International Glass Centre, Dudley College of Technology, United Kingdom; and Masterclasses under the late Klaus Moje AO at Canberra Glassworks. Despite this formal training Emma Borland’s original and personal imagery remains true to her ‘uncultured’ child hood drawings and sculpture pre-art school. Emma Borland currently lives and works in outer Melbourne’s Dandenong Ranges and works as a full-time teacher of special needs children in tandem with her technically sophisticated studio practice.

Presented in association with Murray White Room

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