GASNews October/ November 2011 Volume 22 ... - Glass Art Society

Member Profile
Matt Durran:
Off the Beaten Track
By Scott Benefield
Most of us artists do more than one
thing. We are studio artists, technicians
for ourselves, salesmen for our own
works and bookkeepers; we may teach
occasionally or demonstrate for the public.
Out of economic necessity, if for no other
reason (since very few of us can make a
living solely from the sale of our work),
we branch out a bit.
Matt Durran takes this to an extreme.
If you were to try to use Durran’s
career path as a template when deciding
how to move forward with a life in glass,
I’m not sure that you wouldn’t quickly run
aground. What seems to work for him –
the projects that he takes on, the studio
work that he does, the events in which he
participates – seems, at best, improbable
and, to go by conventional wisdom, utterly
unworkable. To say that his progress thus
far has been highly idiosyncratic is to state
the obvious.
Durran’s introduction to glass came
after an apprenticeship in ice carving; he
traded the accessibility of one material
for the permanence of the other, but
retained the attractive qualities that glass
shares with ice: paradoxical solidity,
malleability and lucidity. After completing
an undergraduate degree in glass in
1991 at University of Sunderland, where
his instructors included the late Charlie
Meaker, he began to establish his practice
in London.
In 2003, Durran was short-listed for
the UK’s prestigious Jerwood Applied
Arts Prize after submitting images of his
cluttered London studio, complete with
all of the objects, materials and detritus
of an artist who engages in an unusually
wide breadth of investigation. It was an
unconventional, risky, all-in submission –
completely in character – but its success
must have confirmed his instincts that the
way forward needn’t follow any previously
4
established path. As an installation, the
contents of Durran’s studio – comprising
more than 2,000 pieces of glass – toured
the UK in a traveling exhibit of Jerwood
Prize finalists. It was a manifestation of
the creative consciousness but also an
accurate reflection of the chaotic, random
and associative nature of his imagination.
But trying to find a linear narrative
to explain Durran’s career trajectory as
a practicing artist is starting off on the
wrong foot. It’s his concept of the material
itself that provides the key to his thinking,
making and various activities in service
of glass: that glass is a substance of
untapped potential in the hands of an
artist. Or at least that’s the closest I’ve
come to understanding what links together
such a diverse set of activities.
Although he employs a wide array
Matt Durran’s Upcycling
(from upcycled borosilicate rods)
of techniques in the work that he
makes with glass – lampworking, kiln
processes, blowing and various methods
of coldworking – Durran is always trying
to find a hitherto unimagined application.
His work has been recognized as a
finalist in the Bombay Sapphire prize.
He has kiln-formed obsidian, a naturally
occurring vitreous substance, to reveal
a surprising porosity that allows it to
become buoyant in water. He has made
photograms of glass pieces, inspired by
the images generated by his own glass
work travelling through airport security
screening devices. He has questioned the
energy requirements and environmental
sustainability of conventional fuels for
melting glass, and been involved with
pioneering a forced-air burner system that
uses biomass. He has executed numerous
Matt Durran
Photogram of
blown glass piece