Winner – 2024 RMIT Gold & Silversmithing Studio Prize
Laura de Carteret is a French-Australian artist based in Melbourne, Australia. They started glass blowing in 2021 through the Ruth Allen Glass traineeship program and since then have incorporated glass as a significant material in their work. Their practice places dualities of pleasure and discomfort in dialogue with material, generating visceral and seductive forms.
Oracle Playground is an exploration of the relationship between materials and the meanings we imbue them with. Metal-smithing and glass blowing are used as processes with which to explore themes that include portals, ritual and alchemy.
This series comprises hybrid organic forms, crafted with metal and glass, that evoke dualities such as pleasure and discomfort, or containment and release. Each piece serves as a container of stories, emotion and memory, where expanding bubbles of glass push against the constraints of forged metal. Through these material dynamics, the forms embody the tensions and contradictions inherent in the human experience.
With an intuitive and playful approach to material, the finished works are visceral, inviting the viewer into another world, whilst reminding them of the act of making itself. The labour involved in the act of making – forging metal, and breathing into molten glass – itself becomes a ritual, a spiritual practice that deepens our connection to the material world.
