Some of the artworks, including Cobi’s neon glasswork, included in the Unbalanced exhibition. Photo: Supplied.
Kiama’s SEVENMARKS Gallery has challenged nine artists to step outside their comfort zones with its annual group exhibition, titled Unbalanced.
Artists include Cesar Cueva, Chick Butcher, Cinnamon Lee, Gabrielle Adamik, Mat Heaney, Mikey Freedom, Phil Spelman, Scott Chaseling and Cobi Cockburn who have responded to the idea of unbalance using a range of mediums and materials.
Cobi, who is also gallery director, said the theme was set to challenge comfort and known order, as the featured artists explored the parameters of balance and conveyed understanding through their chosen material.
“I think we sometimes stay in stable patterns, or we sometimes work to a familiar beat of the drum,” she said.
“Every now and then, it’s really healthy to push those boundaries, and we need a catalyst to do so.
“In framing something unbalanced, we were really trying to probe the artists to consider the parameters in which they make.”
She said setting a theme in the gallery ensured they could attract varied styles of art.
“It’s really engaging to see how people can respond to that through different materials and step outside that comfort zone.”
As an established glass and neon artist, Cobi said she didn’t want to take on the imbalance of a physical object, but rather an unbalanced headspace.
“A lot of the people that I brought insight or inspiration from, look at repetition and look at the use of line to almost calm that unbalanced mind,” she said.
“I’m always intrigued by that.
“A lot of my work has repetition and lines in it, and so I thought I would do a work that actually commented on that, and the ease repetition causes and the relief that it can give us.
“When I look at this work and I stand back, I see a sense of beauty, but really what it probably does show is how much we actually need that – it’s like a meditative process for a lot of artists.”
While she has worked with glass for more than 20 years, it didn’t always look like glass, with her inclusions in the exhibition better described as a series of five neon works that are all on a slant, but which all fit in a line.
While she had a lot of experience in everything from glassblowing to carving, neon was something she had only taken to in the past few years.
“It drew me in as an old-school science,” she said.
“I would look at that medium now as more light rather than glass.”
Cobi has had her work exhibited around the world, including recently having solo exhibitions in Canberra and Sydney.
“Historically, for myself and my husband who work in the arts with glass, a lot of it has been in America, but we’ve had exhibitions in New Zealand as well,” she said.
“In Australia, we do have a good understanding of it [glass], but we’re still quite young, and I think it’s lovely we don’t really wear the burden of history there.
“We can look at glass as a free material and an artistic material, rather than having that traditional approach.
“But for a long time, our main audiences were overseas.”
Having moved to the region in 2006 after completing an arts residency in New Zealand, she now runs the gallery and teaches at The University of Sydney three days a week in the glass studio.
She said she and her husband came to the Illawarra predominantly because they relied on heavy industry, metal fabricators, and certain resources for their art.
“That was probably one of our catalysts, being a day trip from a major city, being able to have access to that, as well as being able to have our own studio space,” she said.
The Unbalanced exhibition opens today (7 December) at SEVENMARKS Gallery at 7 Marks Street, Kiama, and will run until 1 February. The gallery is open on Fridays, 10 am to 5 pm, and
Saturdays 10 am to 3 pm.
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