Yiwei Art Projects
14 September 2015
The residency program’s focus is to take creative professionals outside of their traditional studio practice and position them in an environment where they can research, experiment and develop new skills and techniques, thereby enabling them to develop new work and new audiences. Jess Dare’s 5 week residency offered her access to two international artists in the Yiwei Art Foundation studio ‘San W’ in Shanghai. She also travelled to the Jewellery Studio at the China Academy of Fine Art, Hangzhou, where she gave a lecture and demonstration. The students were impressed with her lamp work technique and the way she creates fine jewellery pieces from glass.
The residency in China will also provide me with invaluable time to focus and develop my practice, learning traditional craft techniques, immersing myself in another culture, another workshop, another world. I hope to connect with local jewellery networks and hopefully lay the foundations for an ongoing relationship with jewelers and glass artists in China.
To be welcomed into this community is a wonderful opportunity for my professional, sustainable practice in the arts and I am honored by the Yiwei Art Foundation’s invitation.
Contemporary jeweller Jess Dare completed a Bachelor of Visual Arts in 2006 (Adelaide Centre for the Arts TAFESA). Since 2005 she has been practicing traditional glass flameworking, having been taught by local and international glass artists. Glass now forms an integral part of her practice.
Dare joined Gray Street Workshop as an access tenant in 2007 and became a partner of the workshop in 2010.
In 2014 she undertook an Asialink residency based in Thailand researching Phuang Malai (Floral Garlands).
Dare has exhibited nationally and internationally and is represented in major national collections including The National Gallery of Australia, the Art Gallery of South Australia and the National Glass Association.
