Canberra artist Erin Conron, through her glass practice, is interested in the way that the common threads of human experience affect us all differently, thereby creating our unique identities. It is the marks and memories left from day to day experiences that build up over a lifetime to form and shape the structure of our identity. Erin’s blown and coldworked vessels express these ideas, as she explains: “each piece is created over time through a series of steps, which unite to result in depth and complexity through the layering of a simple pattern… The layered pattern evokes a lifetime of experiences and memories.” The blown glass vessels act as a canvas for the layering of the linear pattern through which Erin also explores the optical qualities of this technique. Repetitive mark making techniques are used to create the pattern in the pieces but also the ideas of interior and exterior, organic and geometric, and individual and collective. Erin ultimately seeks to create work that represents a quiet balance between these states as well as an object of great beauty.
Erin Conron completed her Bachelor of Visual Arts, with a major in glass, at the Canberra School of Art in 2007 and her Honours year in 2008. Since graduating, she has participated in numerous group exhibitions in Canberra, Sydney and Germany. In 2008, she was a finalist in the Ranamok Glass Prize and, in 2009, a finalist in the ‘Talente’ International Design Competition in Munich. Erin was awarded the 2012 McGrath Emerging Artist Award from the Capital Arts Patrons Organisation.