This was published 9 years ago
Melbourne artist Penny Byrne creates suit of armour out of hand-blown glass for prestigious Venice Biennale show
When Melbourne artist Penny Byrne received an email through Facebook from Okwui Enwezor asking if she'd be interested in creating a work for one of the Venice Biennale's "collateral" exhibitions, she assumed it was spam.
"It seemed like one of those scam emails telling you you'd won a million dollars and asking for your bank details," she says.
Artist Penny Byrne in her Thornbury studio. Her piece Hurt Locker will be part of the Venice Biennale this year.Credit: Penny Stephens
But Enwezor, a Nigerian curator and art critic, was seeking artists for the Glasstress event, a joint project between the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg and Berengo Studio in Venice, to work with famous glass masters in the furnaces of Murano. The event invites artists who work in other mediums to try their hand at creating in glass, working to a specified theme.
This year's theme is "Gotika", an exploration of the effects that Gothic and medieval ideas have on the modern conscience and contemporary art.
Detail of Hurt Locker, 2015, by Penny Byrne.Credit: Francesco Allegretto
After some quick googling to establish she wasn't being scammed, Byrne was thrilled to have been approached.
"It just came out of the blue. Enwezor asked me if I'd ever thought of working in glass. I hadn't but I said I had!"
And as soon as she heard the theme, an idea came to her immediately – a glass suit of "armour".
On a recent visit to the UK, Byrne had found herself taken with the suits of armour at the V&A and the Wallace Collection.
Detail of Hurt Locker, 2015, by Penny Byrne.Credit: Francesco Allegretto
"And I didn't know why – then it all fell into place," she says, "and my idea was fully formed in a day."
Byrne, who works as a ceramic conservator by trade, is best known for her manipulated ceramic artworks – kitsch and antique statues and knick-knacks which she alters with satirical and political messages.
Detail of Hurt Locker, 2015, by Penny Byrne.Credit: Francesco Allegretto
She has also worked recently with bronze sculpture and she assumes it was some of her larger scale works that Enwezor had seen online, where he said he had "found" her.
After working on a design based on a swat police-style "armour", Byrne built a metal "frame" for her piece – standing at about 1.8 metres – which was then shipped to the Venetian island of Murano.
Detail of Hurt Locker, 2015, by Penny Byrne.Credit: Francesco Allegretto
There, under Byrne's guidance, glass masters added the finishing touches to her work, Hurt Locker.
Working in such a "project managing" role is a relatively new idea for Byrne, who is usually very much hands-on, but the glass masters are accustomed to working to others' briefs.
Detail of Hurt Locker, 2015, by Penny Byrne.Credit: Francesco Allegretto
"They're really artisans, not artists," Byrne says. "It was just amazing to watch them working with the glass."
"It's almost like a ballet – they move around, know where everybody is and they barely speak ... it's just incredible."
She describes the finished work, which will go on show from May 9, as her interpretation of a "modern" suit of armour.
"The term 'hurt locker' means if you're a soldier and you're injured, 'you're in a hurt locker' and I felt that if you're in a suit of armour it's the same; you're about to get hurt," she says.
"After looking at all these historical suits of armour, I started to think about contemporary war, the war on terror and the way swat policemen are basically our knights … and soldiers fighting wars, they're our modern-day equivalent to knights wearing armour."
Byrne, who heads to the Biennale next week, is the only Australian exhibiting in Glasstress, alongside artists from 20 different countries, among them big names like Jake and Dinos Chapman, Mat Collishaw and Petah Coyne.
And although Hurt Locker will be available for sale (with an estimated price of €90,000), the "prize" she says is "just being at the Biennale".
"This is just huge for me," Byrne says. "Just incredible."