Giles Bettison

Since graduating from the Canberra School of Art in 1996, Giles Bettison has held sell-out solo shows in New York, Switzerland, Japan, Italy and Germany. He has also participated in many highly successful group exhibitions in Australia, Europe and the USA, gaining an impressive reputation among collectors of Studio Glass and Museum curators throughout the world. For a number of years his glass studio was located in New York but he now resides in Australia. Bettison has been the recipient of several awards including, the Gold Medal in the Bavarian State Prize, Handwerkskammer fur Munchen und Oberbayern, Germany, 2001 and the Urban Glass Award For New Talent, Urban Glass, New York, 1999.

Giles Bettion's work is represented in many high profile public, corporate and private collections including, Museum of Design and Applied Art, Lusanne, Switzerland; Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia, USA; American Craft Museum, New York, USA; Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide; Powerhouse Museum, Sydney; Centro Videro do Norte Portugal, Oliveira de Azemeis, Portugal; Australian National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Brisbane City Gallery, Brisbane, Australia; City of Hobart Gallery, Hobart; Bullseye Glass Company, Portland, USA; Australian National University, Canberra and Resource Finance Corporation, Australia.

Bettison's work is a combination of experimental casting and blowing. He combines intricate Murrine squares and his creative combination of these sets his work apart from that of others who work in the venerable Venetian murrine idiom. It was the Murrini technique, which uses canes or glass rods from fused sheets of coloured glass, that allowed Bettison to develop his unique style. The infinite variation and complexity that is contained within the organic grid structure of these pieces supplies Bettison with the ideal medium for creative experimentation with tonal patterning inspired by our natural environment.