Maureen Williams

Maureen Williams is at the forefront of glass practice in Australia and is widely respected as a glass artist. She was born in Port Pirie, South Australia. Williams completed a Bachelor of Arts [Ceramic Design], majoring in Hot Glass at the Chisholm Institute of Technology. In 1998 she was awarded a full Scholarship to attend Pilchuck Glass School, USA with Dante Marioni and Benjamin Moore. She has participated in solo and group exhibitions throughout Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Asia and the United States. Williams received an Australia Council, Visual Arts/Crafts Board and a Thomas Foundation Grant to attend and participate in GAS Expo 99, Tampa, Florida, USA, 1999. In 1996 she was awarded an Australia Council, Visual Arts/Crafts Board, Grant for New Work. In 2001 she was a finalist in the Ranamok Prize for Contemporary Glass, Sydney.

Maureen Williams work is part of numerous public, corporate collections including, National Gallery of Victoria; Art Gallery of Western Australia; Art Gallery of Queensland; Art Gallery of South Australia; Australian National Gallery; WWCAC, Wagga Wagga, NSW; Diamond Valley Art Collection, Melbourne; Artbank; Die Neue Sammlung Museum, Munich, Germany; Meseu do Vidro da Marinha Grande, Marinha Grande, Portugal Monash University Collection, Melbourne and in various private collections in Australia and overseas.

'Maureen Williams sees the blown glass vessel as a three-dimensional blank canvas for her abstract paintings. She structures the painting by wheel-cutting and engraving linear demarcations in the lightly sandblasted surface of the blown blank, and impregnating them with paint. Then she applies colour in layers, using loose brush marks that create tonal nuances as underlying colours are partially revealed. The painted surface is then encased in layers of clear glass. In these earthy paintings involving imaginary terrains, Williams integrates the macro patterns of landscape viewed from the air with micro patterns of the sun-bleached Australian outback, its salt encrusted rocks, weathered surfaces and rugged gorges... Her impressions of the Australian landscape have been filtered through her philosophical concerns relating to human intervention in the natural environment. In this sense her paintings are both intensely personal narratives and more generalized meditations on human imposition on nature and the restructuring of the landscape'.

"Australian Glass Today" Margot Osborne 2005, Wakefield Press