Exhibitions

My work continues to explore capturing moments, drawing inspiration from nature and my environment. These moments can be fleeting or a result of slow evolution.

The properties of glass makes it the perfect medium to develop my ideas, especially in combination with the interaction of light. Manipulating hot glass, casting, grinding, texturing and polishing allows me to explore how these moments are created, whether fast, when creating the unique hot glass inclusions for my castings using a vitrigraph or slow, involving layering and grinding, very much like the creation of the physical landscape.

I am intrigued as to how the past affects the future and then the future becomes the past through the lens of a glassmaker.

Galia Amsel, 2022

Sabbia Gallery is delighted to be holding Galia’s solo exhibition ‘In the Moment’, her first in ten years. This exhibition has been in the planning process since 2018, and one that Galia has been working towards through her research and development over that time.

We are once again inspired by Galia’s art, including the installation, wall and plinth based sculptural work that Galia is exhibiting in this solo show. We look forward to presenting the new artworks to our Australian and international audience.

British-born Galia Amsel is a highly acclaimed contemporary glass artist living and working in New Zealand. Galia Amsel is an innovative and passionate artist working in the complex medium of glass. She has been a part of the international studio glass movement for thirty years with her artworks embraced and enjoyed by thousands of viewers and collectors worldwide.

Amsel has exhibited in Australia, Britain, France, Spain, Ireland, the United States, the Netherlands and New Zealand and is represented in many significant art collections, including the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Corning Museum of Glass New York, Montreal Museum, European Museum of Modern Glass and the Te Papa Tongarewa, Museum of New Zealand.

Her long and successful history working with glass has seen continuous development within her own artistic practice as well as in her exploration of the material of glass itself.

Amsel’s work is characterised by simple forms and often vibrant colours, features she attributes to the years she lived in Hong Kong as a child and young teenager. The landscape and environment have become a recurring theme of Amsel’s work; drawing the circle into a more elongated form and using colour and movement to create an atmospheric sense of time and place.

Galia’s recent research has focused on the sustainability of her art including the exciting developments of creating her own stringers using recycled and new glass. She has also continued her new series of single colour sculptural forms that are a narrative about the environment and disposable packaging.

We would like to acknowledge the support of Creative NZ, the Arts Council of New Zealand, towards the development of this exhibition