I am evaluating my personal experience of loss and investigating my cultural identity. I intend to highlight and pay tribute to my grandfather's memory through works that revisit objects of my childhood and are informed by glass making processes and Transylvanian craft traditions. I hope to draw the viewer into a shifting zone that embraces respect for traditional Folk Art while contesting the purported impossibility of intellectual innovation.
The thread encapsulated in the glass beads, which recreate embroidery motifs, is made from my grandfather's belongings. This to me emphasises the reliquary aspect of the work, as the beads hold the memory or feeling trapped in time and space and the cloth holds the memory of my grandfather's time. This implies the absence of the body and the presence of memory.
I am the weaver of my life, in which each experience can become an important thread used by my consciousness to connect with another. Therefore, I become the channel for the expression of my soul, and the threads linking me to it are a combination of my own thoughts and emotions.
Veronica Andrus-Blaskievics is a Transylvania-born, Australian based artist, working predominantly in the medium of glass. She is a current candidate for a Bachelor of Visual Arts (Glass) Honours at the Australian National University (ANU) School of Art, Canberra.
In 2007, Veronica completed a course at the Fashion and Design Art School in her hometown Tg-Mures. In 2009, Veronica moved to Sydney, and has resided in Australian since then. In 2012, Veronica commenced her candidature for the Bachelor of Visual Art at University of Sydney, College of the Arts. Her work has been exhibited since 2013 in multiple group exhibitions and she has received several awards, prizes and scholarships for her work.
Veronica uses different working techniques and often incorporates glass with other media, such as concrete, wood and fabric each material chosen for its relevance to the concept of the work. She believes that technique is the vocabulary for expressing emotional experiences, that aesthetics are the language of meaning.
glass, textile, fishing line
25 x 40 x 40 cm
Finalist
Veronica Andrus-Blaskievics, in conversation with Professor Ian Howard, discusses her work 1848 Memories and answers questions from the audience. Recorded on 10 October 2015 at the exhibition.
Download MP3 (6.5 MB)
Judges of the 2015 Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize: Dr Michael Brand (Director of the Art Gallery of NSW), Penelope Seidler AM (Arts Patron and Director of Harry Seidler & Associates) and Barbara Flynn (International Curatorial Advisor).