Sabbia is delighted to announce the inclusion of multi disciplinary artist Louis Grant in this year’s Installation Contemporary program at Sydney Contemporary, one of the world’s premier art fairs. The program consists of 14 ambitious contemporary art projects transforming Carriageworks and iconic locations across Sydney, curated by José Da Silva.
Louis’ exhibition, End to end, again, features a major suspended glass and found object installation, accompanied by a series of new blown glass sculptural works. This presentation highlights important developments in his practice and introduces collectors to the clarity, innovation and expressive potential that underpin his work.
His practice brings a distinctive and compelling presence to contemporary Australian glass, defined by his refined material sensibility and an evolving exploration of sculptural form. His work demonstrates a deep engagement with process and concept, revealing a thoughtful and ambitious approach that resonates strongly with Sabbia’s commitment to presenting leading contemporary artists.
Louis is a queer early‑career artist whose practice moves fluidly between studio glass and interdisciplinary sculpture. Grounded in traditional craft skills, his work expands the possibilities of glassmaking and contemporary sculpture across both domestic‑scale objects and large installations.
Grant graduated with a Bachelor of Visual Art (Honours) from the Australian National University in 2018 and works professionally within the Canberra arts community as an independent studio artist. He has exhibited nationally and internationally, with solo and group presentations and prize shows including the Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize, Talente (Germany), the National Emerging Glass Art Prize, and Hatched National Graduate Exhibition. He has been invited as a teaching assistant for masterclasses at Pilchuck Glass School, the Corning Museum of Glass (USA), and Canberra Glassworks. His work has been featured in multiple publications, incorporated into a Flack Studio interior project, and he continues as lead fabricator for the Australian of the Year Awards. Most recently, his work was acquired by Artbank.
Louis says of this series of works: ‘My practice focuses on glass as a main material to speak of a queer identity, notions of fluidity, instability, care and fragility. Firmly embedded in the technical understanding of glass (from undergrad studies in glass through to ongoing work at Canberra Glassworks and as a technical assistant to senior artists), I work to shift the positions within the discipline and the (traditionally largely masculinised) spaces of production, queering the medium and deviating from what is understood as ‘proper’ form and finish.
My practice responds to the discipline of glass – taking the ‘mastery’ of traditional craft beyond a skill set into a subject position to speak of gender and power issues. Glass is a fluid medium that is constantly in a state of becoming, I use this material to speak of social and psychological spaces that can themselves be seen as ‘unstable compounds’. Moving outside of the conventions of studio glass, I produce works that are increasingly testing the relationships between glass and other materials. Often generated from personal narratives, I fashion oversensitive, hyper-fragile entities that are not so much fragile because made of glass, but because of the emotional tumult they’re arranged in and by’.
