Archives: Online Exhibitions

New Online Exhibition and reviews

Exhibition 4 – Heritage Techniques and Objects

Heritage Techniques and Objects

Deadline – 18th October
Live – 31st October
Makers online Talk – TBC
End – 18th January 2027

Heritage Techniques and Objects. This exhibition aims to bring together contemporary glass artworks that reflect on the material’s rich history while reimagining it through a present-day lens. The exhibition will feature works that adopt, adapt, and exploit traditional glassmaking techniques, alongside pieces that reference or reinterpret antique and historic glass objects. By engaging with heritage processes and forms, the artworks will explore ideas of continuity, memory, and transformation, revealing how the past remains an active and evolving influence within contemporary glass practice.

CGS Online Exhibition – Sign of the Times

Sign of the Times

Makers online Talk- TBC
End – 12th October

Sign of the Times will examine the presence of text, signage, and visual language in contemporary glass art. The exhibition aims to brings together works that reference modern society—its advertising, public spaces, digital culture, and shared symbols—while also acknowledging glass’s long history as a carrier of messages. Using a wide range of glass techniques and approaches, we hope to show works using text, signs and objects that invite reflection on communication, identity, and the social, cultural, and political markers of our time.

All Things Great and Small – OPEN EXHIBITION

Open Exhibition – All Things Great and Small
Open to All Glass Artists, both CGS members and non-members

Launched on 25th May 2026

We invited submissions for All Things Great and Small, an online glass exhibition exploring scale and detail in everyday life. We welcomed a wide range of glassmaking techniques — from traditional blowing, casting, and fusing to experimental approaches — and were particularly interested in works that highlight the extraordinary in the familiar, whether through monumental forms or intricate, close-up details.

Featuring 55 glass artists from the UK and abroad in a celebration of contemporary glass.

Installations and Interventions

CGS member artists were invited to submit work for an exhibition exploring how creative practice can transform, interrupt, or reimagine space. Installations and Interventions focus on works that shift the viewer’s experience – whether through immersive environments, spatial constructions, performative elements, or subtle acts that alter how a place is understood. We welcomed large-scale works, site-responsive pieces and smaller objects that create dialogue through placement or disruption.

Form & Function

HyperFocal: 0

Form & Function invites artists to explore how appearance and purpose inform one another. The exhibition aims to discuss where beauty meets utility: how vessels, objects, or functional forms can also carry emotion, narrative, or atmosphere. Artists are encouraged to consider how craftsmanship, material understanding, and intention converge in their work, and to submit pieces that either embrace functionality, question it, or expand it’s possibilities.

Live 19th January – 16th March 2026

‘Bizarre and Surreal’ – launched 6th October 2025

“That’s bizarre!” “How surreal!” -when we make these statements do we really know what they mean?
To be bizarre can also be described as odd, strange, unusual, grotesque, or weird.
In contrast surreal, in relation to an artwork could mean that the elements in it are combined in a
way that you would not normally expect like having the disorienting, hallucinatory quality of a dream.
This immediately conjures up images by Salvador Dali and the Surrealists.
How are you bizarre and surreal?

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We invited CGS glass artists to show to respond to this theme and to show us their work. 55 artists are in the exhibition.
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Thank you to all those artists that took part.

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For any questions relating to the show, please contact Nicky at: web@cgs.org.uk

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“A Sense of Place” – CGS Contemporary Online Glass Exhibition

Launched on 7th July 2025

The Contemporary Glass Society proudly presents A Sense of Place, a global celebration of glass art featuring 77 international artists. This dynamic exhibition invites you to explore how artists from around the world interpret the concept of “place”—not just as a physical location, but as a deeply personal, emotional, and cultural experience.

From cherished memories to powerful sensations, each piece reflects the diverse ways we connect with the environments around us. Whether it’s a landscape that evokes peace or a site that stirs emotion, this exhibition is a visual journey into the spaces that shape our identities.

Join us for this truly international show and discover the many ways glass can express our Sense of Place.

Meet the Makers Talk (details TBC).

‘Full Circle’ – launched 7th April, 2025

Circles have no beginning and no end. They are not just geometrical symbols but are also what makes life possible. The sun and the moon are both circles and so is the cycle of life. Circles are also an intricate part of nature; time and the seasons occur in repetitive cycles.
Whoever thought that a circle was, well, just a circle?

CGS members grabbed the opportunity to show us what this theme meant to them and the resulting show is superb. We are so proud to launch this international digital glass exhibition.

64 Contemporary Glass Society glass artists truly do show us their ‘Full Circle’ – whether as a visual form or as a metaphysical concept.

For any press enquiries, please contact Helen at admin@cgs.org.uk. For any website or exhibition enquiries, please contact  info@cgs.org.uk

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If you wish to commission or purchase work, please contact the artist directly. Thank you.

 

 

“Light and Dark” -launched on 6th January 2025

Day and night, black and white, bold contrasts made by shadows in stark sunlight – all are examples of light and dark. Darkness, is the direct opposite of lightness, is defined as a lack of illumination, an absence of visible light, or a surface that absorbs light, such as black. It is estimated that 99% of our universe is hidden in the dark – and as light travels at a finite speed, the further you look into the universe the further one looks back in time.

The CGS invited glass artists to show us their contrasts, extremes, even their explorations into space – to boldly go where no one has gone before.

 

We are so thrilled to launch this show as the first show of 2025. And a huge thank you to all those artists that joined the show to take part!

It is one of the most exciting shows we have had yet!

59 CGS artists are taking part in the show!

If you have any questions about the exhibition, taking part, or need any technical help, please email us at info@cgs.org.uk

 

‘Thanks For The Memory’- Glass Postcard Exhibition – some remaining glass postcards for sale.

2024 sees the last International Festival of Glass to be held at the Ruskin Centre in Stourbridge.  The Contemporary Glass Society has been involved with the Festival since its inception.
As our time at the Ruskin Centre comes to an end and we look forward to the next era of the Festival, to celebrate the amazing journey we have all had, we asked our members to share their own memories. 

Memories are magical moments that we treasure so join us in our last Postcard Show at the Ruskin Centre and visit a small treasure full of memories.

Over 100 CGS members took part in this fantastic and fun fundraising show. Over half the postcards sold in Stourbridge but we still have some amazing ones wanting to find a new home.

All work is for sale at affordable prices £50, £75 or £100. and 50% will go towards CGS events in 2025

Do take a look.

Please email admin@cgs.org.uk to enquire

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If you need any help with the online shows or socials, please email info@cgs.org.uk

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