Sheila Labatt Glass 2013

I am a Canadian artist working in cast and flameworked glass.

I trained in China, under Professor Zhuang Xiaowei, and currently divide my time between London and Shanghai.

I have spent the last 6 years exploring, through glass, Chinese materials (acupuncture needles, traditional farming implements, ink), motifs (the Great Wall, Shanghai's Shikumen, Miao minority jewelry) and issues (rapid modernization, destruction of patrimony), all from a Western perspective.

My current work focuses more deeply on the concept of 'Glass as Ink' and is inspired by traditional Chinese landscape painting as well as contemporary inkwork and calligraphy.

Glass lends itself well to the representation of ink painting. When heated, glass adopts many properties of ink, albeit in a more viscous form, and can be manipulated to produce either opaque or translucent imagery. When glass has cooled back to room temperature, the image becomes frozen, just as ink becomes fixed once applied to silk or paper.

My studio research, therefore, investigates how best to manipulate glass to achieve the soul and rhythm of Chinese ink painting in a contemporary context.

Please do not hesitate to contact me about any aspect of my work.