unique show that’s all glass

review by Kayla Maskell

SN News

2008

 

Eugene Ughetti is a percussionist but doesn’t need a drum kit, cymbals or a xylophone to make a sound.

In an unusual atistic and musical collaboration, Mr Ughetti has teamed up with Melbourne-based installation artist Elaine Miles and the pair have brought their show to Shepparton.

 

With more than 200 mixed medium objects, Ms Miles will exhibit her work at Shepparton Art Gallery until the end of October, while Mr Ughetti will perform on the glass art during a free public event on Saturday.  The artists, who are part of the Glass Percussion Project, met a couple of years ago after Ms Miles heard Mr Ughetti’s work on the radio.

 

“I was driving along with another percussionist and we were listening to the radio and thought it sounded like someone playing glass, so I rang the radio station and found out it was Eugene’s group, so we went to check him out and it went from there,: Ms Miles said.

 

The latest exhibition Blue Installation, is only the second time Ms Miles has worked with coloured glass and has a family theme.  “My family have lived in this area for a long time so this installation really creates a sense of home for me,” Ms Miles said.  “My family have helped put a lot of it together; my mum made the quilts and my dad and I built the shelves.”

 

My Ughetti who is also the artistic director of Speak Percussion, has studied with artists on many continents and completed a degree with honours in classical percussion at the Victorian College of the Arts.   He has been exploring glass percussion for about three years and has less than a week to put together his Shepparton performance, having flown in from Switzerland on Sunday.  “I work a lot with experimental music forms and what made me think about glass was that my mum was working with it.” Mr Ughetti said.  “I like that glass percussion is still very unexplored and that you are able to do so many different things with the sound.

 

 

Acknowledgements:

 

This performance was made possible by The Shepparton Art Gallery who commissioned this exhibition and performance series. 

 

This series was partially supported by Arts Victoria creation.