A vibrant place in the heart of the city, Canberra Museum and Gallery celebrates the region's social history and visual arts with dynamic exhibitions and unique community programs and events.

Housing a permanent collection, Reflecting Canberra, and a variety of local, national and international exhibitions, CMAG provides a refreshing insight to the integration of social history and the visual arts.

Reflections

Intermedian, 1996
blown, cut, engraved glass, card
18 x 70 x 27.5 cm (irreg.)
Purchased with funds donated by
Deacons Graham and James 2000

Stephen PROCTER

1946 - 2001

Prior to his untimely death in 2001 Stephen Procter was Head of the Glass Workshop at the ANU School of Art. Born in the United Kingdom in 1946, Procter was initially self-taught in glass engraving and spent a number of years perfecting his techniques in that field. In the late 1970s further study in Vienna led to an expansion in his understanding of glass and ultimately to an illustrious career as a glass artist, teacher and mentor. Procter moved to Canberra in 1992 to take up the position as Head of the Glass Workshop at the ANU School of Art.

Procter’s work is in numerous collections including those of the Corning Museum of Art, New York; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; the Royal Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh; Museum of Decorative Art, Lausanne; the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto; the National Gallery of Australia; the National Gallery of Victoria and the Parliament House Art Collection, Canberra. He has been in numerous solo and group exhibitions and in 2008 Stephen Procter: lines through light held at the Canberra Museum and Gallery celebrated his life’s work through his glass, paintings, drawings and prints.

Intermedian is a quietly beautiful piece. The open spherical forms sit on a rectangular glass base in a state of delicate balance and harmonious equilibrium. The artist has imbued an exquisite tension into the work by the inclusion of the clear possibilities of immanent movement in the spherical forms. This activates the spatial confi guration around the work and allows the play of light, so embraced by Procter, to take a special role. Within a severely limited formal vocabulary the artist alludes to the landscape and to the spirit of that landscape symbolised by his unique and considered
use of light.