MALENY glass blower, Marc Kalifa, has designed the latest Australia Day Award trophy to be presented to seven outstanding Sunshine Coast residents on 26 January at a sunset ceremony on Mooloolaba Beach.
The works chosen are from Marc’s ‘Dreamer’s Series’. They portray figures in an outback-coloured setting and include the Southern Cross in bubbles within the glass.
Marc’s inspiration for these works came from his first views of the Outback through European eyes – the intensity of the light and the rugged beauty and endless possibilities of expansive open space.
“The dreamers are about everyone’s dreams – about the things we want and chase after and sometimes catch,” he said.
“As a foreigner, I was especially struck by the importance of Aboriginal culture and design and how the land is just accepted as part of it. The Southern Cross is intrinsic to this too and I hope I have conveyed a little of this feeling in my work.”
Marc has been a resident of the Sunshine Coast hinterland since 1985 and has established himself as a glass-blower whose work is known across Australia. His trophies are a fitting reward, as Australia Day is also a time when many immigrants become citizens, and Marc himself originally came from France in the 1970s.
A survivor of Cyclone Tracy in Darwin in 1974, Marc established himself as a stained glass artist before moving to Maleny and eventually setting up his studio to start
work work as a hot-glass artist. He said glass-blowing was not for the faint-hearted – it
is physically demanding, extremely hot work requiring great dexterity and presence of mind because there is rarely a second chance to achieve the desired results in glass.
The Sunshine Coast Australia Day awards ceremony, hosted by Mayor Bob Abbot, will take place on 26 January 2010 at a sunset ceremony on Mooloolaba Beach in front of the Loo with a View.
Marc Kalifa’s glass art, including examples from the ‘Dreamers Series’ can be seen at Art on Cairncross Gallery, Cairncross Corner, Maleny or on the gallery’s website: www.artoncairncross.com.au
Tel: 5429 6404 or email: admin@artoncairncross.com.au
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