Susan Thomas & Lisa Bate - Resurfacing

Statement - Susan Thomas

These works continue my exploration of themes looking at family DNA, the uncertainties of memory and ageing’s effects on the way we see the world.

I’ve been making abstract paintings based partly around my mother’s declining memory and health but extended out to encompass my evolving understanding of how fragile but precious our physical and cognitive gifts are.

My mother’s unfailingly positive outlook has helped her through many health challenges and now, when she is at her most frail, she remains stoic in her choice to look for the good.

The provenance of these paintings goes back to 2019 when I was looking at the issues surrounding a cancer gene test my family was taking. My family’s DNA – by that I mean the physical attributes that get passed down and the diseases, but also how we have our own little tribal way of seeing the world – has been high in my mind as health issues have arisen and how those directly affected have responded.

I take pleasure in amending and adding to the layers of earlier works like a physical embodiment of memories overlapping and fading, being created and lost. The paintings are on board which allows me to scratch and disrupt the surface. I use my fingernails to make the scratch marks – sometimes a builder’s nail. I enjoy the physicality of using a brush and at times a palette knife to get different marks and gestures.

Statement - Lisa Bate

These glass sculptures are themed around emotional changes and finding the balance in what we can or cannot control. The body of work explores glass as a material and how it melts and flows. The cast glass columns were made using the lost wax technique, creating balanced sculptural forms that expose internally how the glass reacted to heat when fluid.

The transition in colour variation when you look through the glass is intentional, to appear as though something is shifting and trying to resurface. This is a play on our emotions, or suppressed emotions. I continue to use the sphere form which represents cyclical change and have returned to the use of repetition within my work to produce the simplified, balanced glass structures. The sphere form functions as a vessel which contains the glass, to observe the state of glass flow.

My making process concentrated on directing the glass at its entry point into the moulds when firing. This has been achieved by specific placement of the raw glass before the firing and using multiple feeds on the horizontal and vertical forms. There are rules to follow when casting glass but there's also uncontrollable chances that occur from a lack of complete control during the kiln firing. I’m intrigued by what is hidden until the glass is revealed from the mould.