Waterfall 2024 (detail) Glass Steel

Waterfall 2024 (detail) Glass, steel

The Softening 2023. Install

Adamik reflects on her earlier studies in movement, “With the dance training, I think I’m just realising this, but I always start with the body. It is my way in.” She notes the shared language between landscape and the body, both with their shifting terrains, their valleys, crevices and mounds, flows and veins (of gold or blood). The work luxuriates in the body, with pooling forms and suggestions ​of blood at the cellular level. 

You Might be Holding 2023. Hot and kiln formed glass, steel.

I didn't Ask, 2023. 138 x 42 x 21 cm. Hot and kiln formed glass, aluminium, plaster, papermache, paint.

Much of the new work suggests interrupted flow states, while worm-like objects feel more talismanic and could be comfortably grasped in the hand. One technique involves pulling lolly-coloured glass rods in swirls, then breaking it up and throwing it back into the kiln to form puddles, “almost like paintings”. The glass shards float within transparencies that are coaxed into states of becoming – until the artist crash cools it, forcing a dramatic temperature change in the kiln and sudden stasis.
​The end of the dance.

I didn't ask (detail)

TheSoftening, Install detail

​Gabrielle Adamik stays close to her material. In The Softening, her new glass sculptures offer gravitational droops and cushioned blows. The glass meets with contrasting surfaces – glossy powder coating that softens sharp edges and cement veneer that burnishes away any tight corners. Puddles flood over and catch between shelves that suggest a molten smile or a luxurious drape.

Breathing Pattern (detail)

words - Melody Willis
​images - Silversalt Photography