Imitate: Remediating Glass as an Artistic Medium for Material Imitation

Abstract

Glass has a unique ability to imitate other materials; cross-pollinating with other disciplines to refresh and recreate itself. The creative possibilities of creating glass that imitates other materials such as ceramic, paper, metal, wood, stone, plastic and semi-precious stones are vast. The assertion of this paper is that the use of imitation is a necessary and definitive act within creative artistic practice. Following a range of historical examples to set the context for this article, a range of contemporary glass artists that use glass as a medium for imitation will be introduced and documented through a series of artists case studies. Finally, I will present my current practice-based research into glass as a medium for imitation. I will discuss the material testing and research that has been carried out and introduce two new bodies of artworks that I have developed based on the theme of glass as an artistic medium for material imitation.

Keywords

• glass
• ceramics
• milk glass
• porcelain glass
• imitation
• materiality
• cross-cultural pollination
• remediation