Brenden Scott French is a South Australian artist who works in both blown and kiln formed glass. He has trained extensively in glass practice in Sydney, Adelaide and Canberra since 1997. During the past twenty years he has exhibited extensively in Australia and overseas. He was the recipient of the Stephen Procter Fellowship in 2007. French has also undertaken residencies at Canberra Glassworks, Australian National University Glass Workshop, the University of South Australia, Northlands Creative Glass Centre in Lybster Scotland and the Tacoma Museum of Glass in Tacoma USA. His work is held in numerous private and public collections both in Australia and abroad including the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in the USA.
I live and work in the Barossa Valley, South Australia. This area forms the boundaries of the territorial land belonging to Peramangk and Ngadjuri people.
Here are new works that expand on blown and kiln-formed glass techniques I use, but more deeply explore the industry of human intervention upon the land.Through many years working in my studio at Seppeltsfield I have accumulated these glass artefacts. It has been a cycle of creation and deconstruction in order to make sense of my being in this mythological Landscape.
When looking closely at Landscape, predominantly as a metaphor of power – ideas surrounding original habitation, identity and identification, geologic and environmental understandings, and the politics of inclusion and exclusion have all provided coherent points of reference. The two pillars of thought progressively informing this navigation are myth and heresy.
Hopefully these works provide a sense of inquiry into these ideas and my use of colour to enable the act of seeing and of being witness, and most importantly, a purpose to nurturing meaningful imaginations.
Brenden Scott French, September 2018
