ABOUT
Harriet Schwarzrock
As an artist fascinated with systems and connectivity, my recent practice involves subtly interactive illumination, encasing aurora-like neon and plasma within blown glass forms. This vibrant form of illumination has developed alongside my material knowledge of glass.
My practice is based in Queanbeyan, NSW, in a hot glassblowing home studio with my partner Matthew Curtis. I am currently a doctoral candidate in the School of Art and Design at the Australian National University, where my project investigates gas-discharge illumination as a responsive and relational artistic medium. Through a practice that elicits a plasma-aurora encased within blown-glass forms, my project investigates how our proximity to these objects affects their luminosity and makes our presence vivid.
I graduated from Sydney College of the Arts and have exhibited extensively internationally. My work is widely collected, and I have won various awards and been selected for prestigious residencies, including the Corning Museum of Glass, the inaugural Canberra Glassworks Art Group Fellowship, the AsiaLink Toyama residency in Japan, and the Stephen Procter Fellowship at the Australian National University. Recently, my public artwork 'murmuration' secured the ACT's Art in Architecture award. My illuminated plasma heart installations have been exhibited at Canberra Glassworks, Berengo Studio in Murano, Venice, and the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra.
Most of us learn about three states of matter at school: solid, liquid, and gas. Water is a good example of all three. As energy is added, ice melts into liquid water, liquid water boils into steam, and steam, when heated, disperses as gas. But there is a fourth state, and it is the most abundant form of matter in the universe.
When a gas is heated to extreme temperatures or charged with electricity, its atoms become so energised that they release their electrons, transforming into something smaller than an atom. This is plasma: an electrically charged gas-like state, whose light is a byproduct of its energetic interactions. Scientists describe it as an electric fluid, capturing something of its dynamic, flowing nature.
Plasma is all around us, though we rarely think of it that way. The sun is plasma. Lightning is plasma. The soft glow of a neon sign is plasma. The aurora australis, that shimmering curtain of light in the darkest, most southern sky, is plasma.
As an artist working with glass, what captivates me is the possibility of containing this extraordinary matter within a blown glass vessel, where you can see its luminosity up close and witness how it shifts and changes in relation to your presence. In these works, plasma is not out there in the atmosphere or deep in space. It is here, up close and visible, inside a glass vessel, responding to you, shifting and glowing as you draw close
mail@harrylottirocky@gmail.com
Harriet Schwarzrock C.V.
22-08-1974 Melbourne, Australia;
Education-
2021+ Ph.D. Candidate, ANU School of Art and Design, Canberra.
1995-1999 Sydney College of the Arts, Bachelor of Arts, Glass Studio, Honours. Sydney University.
Solo Exhibitions-
2021 spaces between stillness and movement. Installation during the Australian Love Stories Exhibition. National Portrait Gallery Canberra.
2019 filament @ Suki&Hugh Gallery, Bungendore, NSW.
2018 Inhale, Toyama Glass Museum. Japan.
2017 Exquisite Nature Exquisite Neon, Suki & Hugh Gallery, NSW.
2008 Harriet Schwarzrock, Riley Gallery, Cleveland, USA.
Awards - Conferences
2024 Constellations – 2024 AHRC International Conference
Oxford Open University Conference, Cambridge, UK
2023 Medical Humanities. Australian National University. Presentation on Hearts in and out of Crisis.
2021 Glass Arts Society Plasma presentation.
2017 Queanbeyan Palerang Regional Council Art Award.
2016 Capital Arts Patron Organisation, Canberra Weekly Award.
2014 Waterhouse Natural Science and Art Sculpture Prize,
Museum of South Australia.
2000 Selected from SCA for ‘Talente’, Craft Australia, Munich, Germany.
1998 Helen Lempiere Travelling Art Scholarship award exhibition.
1996 Gerome De Costa Memorial Award, Sydney College of the Arts.
Exhibitions-
2024 Materiality but not as we know it. Canberra Museum and Gallery
ARTefacts Classics Museum, Australian National University.
2023 M16 Drawing Prize finalist.
Paired Suki and Hugh Gallery, Bungendore, NSW.
Upending Expectations, Canberra Glassworks, Travelling.
2022 Confluence, with Valerie Kirk AM, CraftAct, Geoscience Australia
and Parks ACT, Namadgi Residency Exhibition.
The Hum and the Buzz, Neolite, St Peter's, Sydney.
Electric Dreams, c/o Square One Studio & St Cloche, Paddington.
2021 LIT Light in Transmission, Pittsburgh Glass Centre, USA.
6 in @ border Art Space Queanbeyan.
2020 murmuration, Public Commission, [Department of Home Affairs, co Canberra Glassworks, DJAS Canberra.]
Adaption, Canberra Glassworks/Suki&Hugh
She Bends, Love Land Museum, Colorado, USA.
2019 She Bends, Var West Gallery, Milwaukee, USA.
2018 Hearts & Minds, Canberra Glassworks, ACT. Australia.
Selected for Il Vetro Illuminato, GAS conference, Venice, Italy. Exhibited at Berengo, Studio Murano.
2017 Defining Moments, with Matthew Curtis, Canberra Glassworks, ACT.
City of Design, Craft Act.
History Repeated, Craft Act, Corning MOG Collaborative concept.
2016 Reflections, Parliament House, Canberra ACT.
Light Lines, a project with Sarah Rice, Canberra You Are Here Festival.
Interconnected, Form Gallery Queanbeyan.
Fresh Glass, Canberra Glassworks.
2015 And So It Begins. C5 Gallery, Canberra.
Winter Lights, Kirra Gallery, Melbourne
The Waterhouse Natural Science Art Prize 2014, South Australian. Museum. Hobart City Art Prize, Finalist. Tasmania.
Art in the Embassy, United States Embassy Canberra.
2014 Tree, Canberra Glassworks.
Revere, Sabbia Sydney.
2013 Undercurrent Design Market National Portrait Gallery
Winter Lights, Kirra Gallery, Melbourne.
Anima, TCA, Lanyon Gallery, ACT.
Modern Market, Craft Act and Molongolo Group Canberra.
2012 SOFA Chicago, USA, co Kirra Gallery.
Osmosis, Exhibition with Tevita Havea at Kirra Gallery, Melbourne.
Alphabet, Craft ACT, Canberra.
Winter Lights, Kirra Gallery, Melbourne
2011 ‘Glimpse’ Chalk Horse Gallery, Sydney.
2010 SOFA Chicago and SOFA Santa Fe, Riley Gallery, USA.
‘Winter Lights’, Kirra Gallery, Melbourne.
Inaugural Undercurrent Design Survey, National Portrait Gallery, ACT
2009 SOFA Chicago, Riley Gallery, USA.
Wheaton Village Glass Weekend, Riley Gallery, Cleveland, USA.
Collect @ Saatchi Gallery, co. Raglan Manly
P3, Palm Beach Art Fair; Riley Gallery, USA.
2008 SOFA, Chicago, Riley Gallery, Cleveland, USA.
Matthew Curtis and Harriet Schwarzrock, Riley Gallery, Cleveland, USA.
“Capital Glass”, Kirra Gallery, Melbourne, VIC, Australia.
Cowra Regional Gallery Art Festival, Cowra, NSW.
2007 ‘New from Australia’, Chappell Gallery, N.Y., N.Y.
SOFA, Chicago, Raglan Gallery, Sydney.
‘Little drop of Kindness’, Craft and Design Centre, ACT.
2006 ‘Red Christmas’, Workshop Bilk, Queanbeyan. NSW.
Miniatures in Glass, Workshop Bilk, Queanbeyan. NSW.
2005 Kamberra Wines, Canberra, group show.
Verge, Top Floor Gallery, Adelaide, in conjunction with GAS 05.
2004 Reflections, Sydney College of the Arts Survey, Wagga Wagga.
2001 Summer, Fehraltorf, Switzerland.
2000 Talente, Craft Australia, Munich, Germany.
Newspace S.C.A., Scholarship Exhibition.
1999 Sydney College of the Arts Degree Show.
This Way Up’, Object Galleries C.F.C.C., Sydney.
International Glass Arts Exhibition, Portsmouth, Virginia.
Glenaeon Craft Arts Student Exhibition, Sydney.
Student Show, Ausglass Conference, Wagga Wagga.
1998. Sydney College of the Arts Degree Show.
Pacific Wave, Bondi Pavilion, Sydney.
Helen Lempiere Travelling Art Scholarship Exhibition.
N.S.W. Ministry of the Arts, Artspace, Sydney.
Art Award Exhibition, Tap Gallery, Sydney.
Student Show, Ausglass Conference, Sydney.
Residencies-
2023 Corning Museum of Glass Residency, Corning, NY.
2022 Science Week Artist in Residence @ Canberra Glassworks.
2021 Craft Act, Geoscience Australia and Parks ACT, Namadgi Residency.
K Rea M Douglas master class Glassworks.
2019 Procter Residency, Australian National University & USA, Canberra.
2018 Asia Link, Residency, Toyama, Japan.
2017 Australia Council, New Works Grant.
Inaugural Art Group Residency at the Canberra Glassworks.
2016 Canberra Glassworks Artist in Residence.
1999 William Fletcher Trust Grant.
1997 Pilchuck Glass School Travel Assistance.
Willoughby Council Arts and Culture Grant.
Collections-
2017 Parliament House Collection. Canberra.
2012/24 Collection of Canberra Museum and Gallery.
2015/17 National Art Collection Wagga Wagga, Australia.
As an artist fascinated with systems and connectivity, my recent practice involves subtly interactive illumination, encasing aurora-like neon and plasma within blown glass forms. This vibrant form of illumination has developed alongside my material knowledge of glass.
My practice is based in Queanbeyan, NSW, in a hot glassblowing home studio with my partner Matthew Curtis. I am currently a doctoral candidate in the School of Art and Design at the Australian National University, where my project investigates gas-discharge illumination as a responsive and relational artistic medium. Through a practice that elicits a plasma-aurora encased within blown-glass forms, my project investigates how our proximity to these objects affects their luminosity and makes our presence vivid.
I graduated from Sydney College of the Arts and have exhibited extensively internationally. My work is widely collected, and I have won various awards and been selected for prestigious residencies, including the Corning Museum of Glass, the inaugural Canberra Glassworks Art Group Fellowship, the AsiaLink Toyama residency in Japan, and the Stephen Procter Fellowship at the Australian National University. Recently, my public artwork 'murmuration' secured the ACT's Art in Architecture award. My illuminated plasma heart installations have been exhibited at Canberra Glassworks, Berengo Studio in Murano, Venice, and the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra.
Most of us learn about three states of matter at school: solid, liquid, and gas. Water is a good example of all three. As energy is added, ice melts into liquid water, liquid water boils into steam, and steam, when heated, disperses as gas. But there is a fourth state, and it is the most abundant form of matter in the universe.
When a gas is heated to extreme temperatures or charged with electricity, its atoms become so energised that they release their electrons, transforming into something smaller than an atom. This is plasma: an electrically charged gas-like state, whose light is a byproduct of its energetic interactions. Scientists describe it as an electric fluid, capturing something of its dynamic, flowing nature.
Plasma is all around us, though we rarely think of it that way. The sun is plasma. Lightning is plasma. The soft glow of a neon sign is plasma. The aurora australis, that shimmering curtain of light in the darkest, most southern sky, is plasma.
As an artist working with glass, what captivates me is the possibility of containing this extraordinary matter within a blown glass vessel, where you can see its luminosity up close and witness how it shifts and changes in relation to your presence. In these works, plasma is not out there in the atmosphere or deep in space. It is here, up close and visible, inside a glass vessel, responding to you, shifting and glowing as you draw close
mail@harrylottirocky@gmail.com
Harriet Schwarzrock C.V.
22-08-1974 Melbourne, Australia;
Education-
2021+ Ph.D. Candidate, ANU School of Art and Design, Canberra.
1995-1999 Sydney College of the Arts, Bachelor of Arts, Glass Studio, Honours. Sydney University.
Solo Exhibitions-
2021 spaces between stillness and movement. Installation during the Australian Love Stories Exhibition. National Portrait Gallery Canberra.
2019 filament @ Suki&Hugh Gallery, Bungendore, NSW.
2018 Inhale, Toyama Glass Museum. Japan.
2017 Exquisite Nature Exquisite Neon, Suki & Hugh Gallery, NSW.
2008 Harriet Schwarzrock, Riley Gallery, Cleveland, USA.
Awards - Conferences
2024 Constellations – 2024 AHRC International Conference
Oxford Open University Conference, Cambridge, UK
2023 Medical Humanities. Australian National University. Presentation on Hearts in and out of Crisis.
2021 Glass Arts Society Plasma presentation.
2017 Queanbeyan Palerang Regional Council Art Award.
2016 Capital Arts Patron Organisation, Canberra Weekly Award.
2014 Waterhouse Natural Science and Art Sculpture Prize,
Museum of South Australia.
2000 Selected from SCA for ‘Talente’, Craft Australia, Munich, Germany.
1998 Helen Lempiere Travelling Art Scholarship award exhibition.
1996 Gerome De Costa Memorial Award, Sydney College of the Arts.
Exhibitions-
2024 Materiality but not as we know it. Canberra Museum and Gallery
ARTefacts Classics Museum, Australian National University.
2023 M16 Drawing Prize finalist.
Paired Suki and Hugh Gallery, Bungendore, NSW.
Upending Expectations, Canberra Glassworks, Travelling.
2022 Confluence, with Valerie Kirk AM, CraftAct, Geoscience Australia
and Parks ACT, Namadgi Residency Exhibition.
The Hum and the Buzz, Neolite, St Peter's, Sydney.
Electric Dreams, c/o Square One Studio & St Cloche, Paddington.
2021 LIT Light in Transmission, Pittsburgh Glass Centre, USA.
6 in @ border Art Space Queanbeyan.
2020 murmuration, Public Commission, [Department of Home Affairs, co Canberra Glassworks, DJAS Canberra.]
Adaption, Canberra Glassworks/Suki&Hugh
She Bends, Love Land Museum, Colorado, USA.
2019 She Bends, Var West Gallery, Milwaukee, USA.
2018 Hearts & Minds, Canberra Glassworks, ACT. Australia.
Selected for Il Vetro Illuminato, GAS conference, Venice, Italy. Exhibited at Berengo, Studio Murano.
2017 Defining Moments, with Matthew Curtis, Canberra Glassworks, ACT.
City of Design, Craft Act.
History Repeated, Craft Act, Corning MOG Collaborative concept.
2016 Reflections, Parliament House, Canberra ACT.
Light Lines, a project with Sarah Rice, Canberra You Are Here Festival.
Interconnected, Form Gallery Queanbeyan.
Fresh Glass, Canberra Glassworks.
2015 And So It Begins. C5 Gallery, Canberra.
Winter Lights, Kirra Gallery, Melbourne
The Waterhouse Natural Science Art Prize 2014, South Australian. Museum. Hobart City Art Prize, Finalist. Tasmania.
Art in the Embassy, United States Embassy Canberra.
2014 Tree, Canberra Glassworks.
Revere, Sabbia Sydney.
2013 Undercurrent Design Market National Portrait Gallery
Winter Lights, Kirra Gallery, Melbourne.
Anima, TCA, Lanyon Gallery, ACT.
Modern Market, Craft Act and Molongolo Group Canberra.
2012 SOFA Chicago, USA, co Kirra Gallery.
Osmosis, Exhibition with Tevita Havea at Kirra Gallery, Melbourne.
Alphabet, Craft ACT, Canberra.
Winter Lights, Kirra Gallery, Melbourne
2011 ‘Glimpse’ Chalk Horse Gallery, Sydney.
2010 SOFA Chicago and SOFA Santa Fe, Riley Gallery, USA.
‘Winter Lights’, Kirra Gallery, Melbourne.
Inaugural Undercurrent Design Survey, National Portrait Gallery, ACT
2009 SOFA Chicago, Riley Gallery, USA.
Wheaton Village Glass Weekend, Riley Gallery, Cleveland, USA.
Collect @ Saatchi Gallery, co. Raglan Manly
P3, Palm Beach Art Fair; Riley Gallery, USA.
2008 SOFA, Chicago, Riley Gallery, Cleveland, USA.
Matthew Curtis and Harriet Schwarzrock, Riley Gallery, Cleveland, USA.
“Capital Glass”, Kirra Gallery, Melbourne, VIC, Australia.
Cowra Regional Gallery Art Festival, Cowra, NSW.
2007 ‘New from Australia’, Chappell Gallery, N.Y., N.Y.
SOFA, Chicago, Raglan Gallery, Sydney.
‘Little drop of Kindness’, Craft and Design Centre, ACT.
2006 ‘Red Christmas’, Workshop Bilk, Queanbeyan. NSW.
Miniatures in Glass, Workshop Bilk, Queanbeyan. NSW.
2005 Kamberra Wines, Canberra, group show.
Verge, Top Floor Gallery, Adelaide, in conjunction with GAS 05.
2004 Reflections, Sydney College of the Arts Survey, Wagga Wagga.
2001 Summer, Fehraltorf, Switzerland.
2000 Talente, Craft Australia, Munich, Germany.
Newspace S.C.A., Scholarship Exhibition.
1999 Sydney College of the Arts Degree Show.
This Way Up’, Object Galleries C.F.C.C., Sydney.
International Glass Arts Exhibition, Portsmouth, Virginia.
Glenaeon Craft Arts Student Exhibition, Sydney.
Student Show, Ausglass Conference, Wagga Wagga.
1998. Sydney College of the Arts Degree Show.
Pacific Wave, Bondi Pavilion, Sydney.
Helen Lempiere Travelling Art Scholarship Exhibition.
N.S.W. Ministry of the Arts, Artspace, Sydney.
Art Award Exhibition, Tap Gallery, Sydney.
Student Show, Ausglass Conference, Sydney.
Residencies-
2023 Corning Museum of Glass Residency, Corning, NY.
2022 Science Week Artist in Residence @ Canberra Glassworks.
2021 Craft Act, Geoscience Australia and Parks ACT, Namadgi Residency.
K Rea M Douglas master class Glassworks.
2019 Procter Residency, Australian National University & USA, Canberra.
2018 Asia Link, Residency, Toyama, Japan.
2017 Australia Council, New Works Grant.
Inaugural Art Group Residency at the Canberra Glassworks.
2016 Canberra Glassworks Artist in Residence.
1999 William Fletcher Trust Grant.
1997 Pilchuck Glass School Travel Assistance.
Willoughby Council Arts and Culture Grant.
Collections-
2017 Parliament House Collection. Canberra.
2012/24 Collection of Canberra Museum and Gallery.
2015/17 National Art Collection Wagga Wagga, Australia.