The Scottish Glass Society’s 2025 annual exhibition Alchemy is now open at Glasgow’s Trades Hall. Its elegant room with a full wall of windows is the ideal location to display over sixty pieces of fine art glass by more than thirty SGS members, beautifully presented by the SGS’s volunteer display team.
The theme of Alchemy was given to members with the aim to inspire pieces which would create a sense of wonder at the transformation of glass from raw materials into precious forms, and while some makers have responded more literally to the theme, all the work on display is clearly informed by their knowledge of the science of working the materials, and their creativity.
The exhibition was opened on the evening of Tuesday 16th September with an opening speech given by the respected art critic Clare Henry, who highlighted the endangered status that glass art currently has, with the proposed closure in 2026 of the National Glass Centre at Sunderland and most recently the closure of the stained glass studio at Glasgow School of Art. She expressed her admiration for the works on show, demonstrating that great glass work continues to be made, but emphasised that there is a pressing need to keep lobbying in many directions to maintain educational opportunities for its continuation, and for artists to do whatever they can practically to continue to support its creation.
On the opening evening it was clear that this is a valuable occasion for SGS members and friends and family to come together from all over Scotland to celebrate their work and to talk to each other about the processes involved. Indeed the SGS members’ work in Alchemy shows that there are many exponents of the art producing highly skilled and beautiful work across Scotland and further afield.
Also a delight to see as a bonus within the show is the SGS’ ‘Glasgow 850’ project called Art on an A-frame – a travelling display of flat glass panels created by members to celebrate Glasgow’s 850th year, with over fifty pieces imaginatively capturing iconic Glasgow places and symbols. This exhibit will travel to further Glasgow locations throughout this year.
Amongst favourite pieces of mine in the Alchemy exhibition are:
Brian Waugh’s Children of Poseidon, a beautifully painted and enamelled shoal of fish within a finely crafted wooden light box.
Ian Pearson’s Ode to Scientific Glass 2 is one of several of his pieces in the show. Ian is a scientific glass blower by profession. In conversation at the show he expressed the wish to see art and science being brought closer together, and his pieces certainly achieve this.
Alison Kinnaird’s Lightbulb Moment is a finely worked piece of copper-wheel engraved glass, with a female figure holding the light bulb’s filament and a flurry of moths drawn to the light.
Wendy Lund’s Wings of the Morning is in the form of an eagle’s wing, a historical symbol of alchemists. The forms of the feathers and the subtlety of the colouring in fused glass are particularly pleasing.
Amanda Simmons uses layers of matt spiky-green leaf forms to evoke the light and shade of exotic foliage in her monumental vessel Jungle I.
Tim Kirman’s Omen: Crows Overhead – a take on Hitchcock’s film The Birds – has a delightful comic book feel with the inked shapes of the crows set against cobalt blue glass.
In the A-frame exhibit, Steven Graham’s elegant tile Wally Close #1 is a nice play on a section of an archetypal ‘wally close’ – the ceramic-tiled decorative walls that are such a feature of Glasgow tenement entrances.
In mounting this annual show and its other exhibitions, the Scottish Glass Society is continuing to do great work, to bring contemporary art glass to the attention of the wider public. The show continues during Glasgow’s 2025 ‘Open Doors’ festival weekend, so visitors also have the opportunity then to view the Great Hall of the Robert Adam-designed Trades Hall.
Admission to the show is free to all. There is an illustrated catalogue available, priced £5, and visitors to the show are invited to vote for a ‘People’s Prize’ for their favourite piece in the exhibition.
With thanks to Gordon Reid for this review.
