Michelle Stewart
Michelle has completed an Advanced Diploma in Engineering Jewellery at NMIT (now Melbourne Polytechnic) in 2011, a Bachelor of Fine Art with first class honours in 2017 at RMIT University, Melbourne, and is currently a PhD candidate at RMIT undertaking a creative dissertation researching the ‘Phenomena of the Forest’. Her contemporary jewellery and glasswork have been selected for shows in Australia, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium and North America, with her recycled glass work also winning an award in Venice, Italy. She spent a year at The Glasgow School of Art as an Artist in Residence in 2018-19 and this year completed the Bundanon Artist Residency in NSW. With an environmental bias that explores notions of health, connectivity and symbiotic relationships, Michelle works in glass, using pâte de verre and lampworking techniques blended with her metal working skills to create contemporary jewellery works, small sculpture and installation works.
Carpet Memories 1, 2025, Bullseye glass, 104 H 140 W x 140 D. Photographed by Fred Kroh.
My work draws inspiration from the bold colours and intricate patterns of 1970s carpets I remember from childhood. The vibrant lines and rhythmic designs of my bedroom floor echo through my explorations with the bullseye glass palette. Each individual murrine, as a fragment of colour and line, seems simple in isolation, yet when arranged together, a complex and layered pattern emerges. The blown forms I created are intentionally pared back, allowing their simplicity of shape to act as a vessel through which the patterns and colours take centre stage.
Carpet Memories 2, 2025, Bullseye glass, 135 H x 110 W x 110 D. Photographed by Fred Kroh.
