Kate Cornwall

Working with glass, is something which draws you in, and once ensnared; nurtures, challenges, surprises and confounds you, all at the same time.

A glass artist has to be part artist, part scientist, part crazy. There’s a high degree of technical know-how required to work in glass and sometimes I think there must be an irrational eccentricity in artists who want to work with a product that is so time-consuming, unforgiving, to produce something which itself is unforgiving.

Strong themes of women’s rights are approached subtly across Kate Cornwall’s personal body of work, often with a humorous or quirky historical reference in relationship to her chosen medium of glass.  Kate engages with a mixture of approaches and glass techniques in order to challenge how contemporary art is viewed and presented. Kate enjoys the freedom to bring traditionally fine techniques in a historically craft arena, as seen in her glass drawings: Scenes of NZ in glass.

Kate was born in Christchurch, New Zealand. After a successful career in business, with corporate change and project management qualifications, Kate has studied under many of NZ’s world class glass artists, including David Traub, Evelyn Dunstan, Elizabeth McClure, as well as several international visiting artists including Daniel Clayman, Silvia Levenston, Kirsty Rae. 

A strong advocate for the underdog, and how women’s places have often been seen as secondary or unimportant, I was intrigued to discover that women in the late 1800s/early 1900s used their hat pins to fend off unwanted attention. This was so successful that in fact many letters of complaint were written about these ‘upstarts’. Inspired, I began creating my own ornamental version of glass hats and hat pins. I'm using glass to express the fragility of this defense - glass can be considered fragile but it's also strong, sharp and dangerous.