Matters of Time: Contemporary Metal Practices

Curated by Catherine Woolley

UNSW Galleries, Gadigal-Bidjigal/Sydney

29 August - 16 November 2025

https://www.galleries.unsw.edu.au/exhibition/matters-of-time

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Sky Series 2025

27 pendants, vitreous enamel, copper, cord

Each 70 × 70 × 1mm

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Statement by Catherine Woolley

Sky Series encompasses twenty-seven pendants presented as a horizontal line across the gallery wall. Each pendant materialises a sky vista captured by Veness during her repeated journeys between Yuin Country/Callala Beach and Gadigal Nura/Sydney. Tracing the transient qualities of light and atmospheric shifts, the pendants chart a spectrum of colour gradients from soft pinks, purples, and blues to warm ambers and oranges. Their rounded silhouettes refer to knot diagrms drawn from an inherited copy of The Ashley Book of Knots (1947), signifying a looping path of return. Each piece is formed through the slow, intimate processes of vitreous enamelling in which fine layers of painted and sifted glass powders are kiln-fired onto copper. Grounded in embodied knowledge through the act of making, Veness offers a poetic meditation on place as an evocation of movement and time.

Installation images by Jacqui Manning

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Garland Magazine article: Sky Series: Painting the heavens with glass