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Indian influence spices up the world of glass
A BOLD use of colour and striking designs are trademarks of the stunning glass Kate Jones produces with her partner.
But she says a brief but intense immersion in Indian culture has swept away her "English reserve" to make their new pieces the most colourful and elaborate yet.
When the artist and her partner, Stephen Gillies, started making glass together more than a decade ago, they worked in black and white.
Now a new cross-cultural relationship has resulted in large, intricately-patterned bowls after a trip to India.
The glass blown by Mr Gillies and decorated by Ms Jones already graces public and private collections worldwide and has always been known as "defiantly decorative".
But now Ms Jones said an introduction to Indian art and culture had helped her to cast aside some of her usual restraint.
The British Council invited her to join a mentoring programme to support young Indian designers while promoting the UK's role as an international creative hub.
The scheme is run in association with the Commonwealth Business Council and also aims to boost India's burgeoning export market.
Last summer, Ms Jones lectured designers across the subcontinent during a whistlestop tour before choosing to work with up-and-coming textiles designer Jigisha Patel, from Delhi, who recently had her first rug designs bought by Habitat in the UK.
At the end of last year Ms Patel and her husband, furniture designer Mann Singh, travelled to the North York Moors to spend a fortnight with Mr Gillies and Ms Jones at their home and workshop at Rosedale Abbey, near Pickering.
The two women collaborated to design a special one-off bowl for the top award at a red-carpet gala in Mumbai last month to celebrate India's creative entrepreneurs.
The bowls, on show in the new Gillies Jones exhibition The Indian Influence, are up to 12in across and have brightly-coloured patterns in overlaid sand-carved glass. The overlay decoration technique, sometimes referred to as cameo, is a distinctive feature of many Gillies Jones pieces but Ms Jones said the intensity of the pattern was different in the new pieces.
"It's a new way of looking at pattern and a different way of looking at our work," she said.
"We've always worked with colour and pattern and have had our work described as 'defiantly decorative' in the past.
"However, I would like to feel that some of the English reserve that is culturally inherent has now been subtly subverted and suppressed.
"This is something a bit different, with a fresh energy. I've gone outside my comfort zone.
"I normally stop myself but I've allowed myself to let go and let the influences come through.
"It has taken some time for me to let the overwhelming and wonderful experience that was India in all its richness filter through into our work.
"The gloves are off with pattern, so to speak, and it is quite liberating to allow myself to let go and let the visual experience that was India through onto the glass."
The Gillies Jones spring studio exhibition – The Indian Influence – continues until April 29.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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