Solo Exhibition by Louis Grant

Overview

In this exhibition of new work Louis Grant draws on formalist principles of shape, scale, colour and composition to create a series of sculptural scenarios that use the language of materials to speak of connection, reliance and resistance between forms. In the works, glass's inherent instability -its disorganised particles and resistance to fixed form- serves as a powerful metaphor for fluidity and queer embodiment. In connected installations across the gallery spaces, Grant presents forms of 'staging', activating the performativity of glass.

Pumpkins (forever linked with ideas of transformation), and other forms, recur like a refrain throughout the installations. In each encounter we see them adopt shifting roles, holding or being held, and appearing at various stages of production, from polished glass to cast wax positives. Interrupting the progression of production at different moments both disrupts the expected linear timeline of making and proposes a state of continual becoming. Within the work, nothing remains fixed and no hierarchies – between materials, scales, or forms- are imposed. Across each installation, dynamic relationships between forms unfold, and the exhibition invites us to consider how these shifting connections, shaped through modularity, materiality, and malleability, actively articulate presence and possibility.

See the Canberra Glassworks website for the full 2026 program and aligned events as such Gallery Floor Talk.

Canberra Glassworks 2026 exhibition program is supported by artsACT and Creative Australia.