Visual art / Martyn Thompson: History, the paraphernalia of my interior life. At Canberra Glassworks, until  March 23. Reviewed by SOPHIA HALLOWAY.

Entering Martyn Thompson’s exhibition, History, the paraphernalia of my interior life, at Canberra Glassworks feels like stepping into an impeccably styled home.

Hand-blown glass, hand-painted ceramics and textile works are interspersed with furniture pieces that have been collected and restored by the artist. The title of the exhibition takes on a double meaning, referring both to Thompson’s love of design and interiors, and how these environments influence the inner world of the artist.

Thompson began his creative career as a fashion designer in Sydney, followed by a three-decade stint as a sought-after photographer in Paris, London and New York. His photography career originally centred around fashion, but at the behest of a friend, Thompson expanded into lifestyle photography, capturing food, travel and interiors. As Thompson describes it, it was when he finally “caved” into lifestyle photography that his career really took off.

Now based back in Sydney, Thompson’s lesson has been that it’s better to embrace the things that come easily to you, rather than force the things that don’t. Thompson implores us to “take what you have and amplify it”.

Colour, light and beauty are what comes instinctively to Thompson, elements that translate across his photography and object-based practice. As for the parts that don’t come so naturally, Thompson says, you can ask for help – which is where the Glassworks collaboration comes in.

Since expanding his creative practice into design in 2012, Thompson has sought out skilled artisans to bring his concepts to life. At the Canberra Glassworks, Thompson worked in partnership with Tom Rowney, a leading Australian glassblower with expertise in Venetian glass techniques. Thompson and Rowney worked with a team of up to five glassblowers to reimagine Thompson’s ceramic Penny Vase form in glass, in various scales, as well as producing other functional and sculptural pieces.

In the exhibition, the effect is of a seamless transition of Thompson’s visual language across various mediums. The tapestries replicate the patterns and forms of Thompson’s vessels in ceramic and glass, punctuated by a jacquard daybed or vintage altar table. The new glass forms enable the light in a way that ceramic cannot. The soundtrack to the exhibition is Brian Eno’s Thursday Afternoon, invoking the German concept of Gesamtkunstwerk, or “total work of art”, where artforms come together to create a sense of artistic harmony within a space.

For Thompson, paraphernalia refers to the collection of ideas and experiences that one collects over a lifetime, but he is more interested in making us feel something than think something. Thompson’s holistic approach to creating an environment makes it easy for the visitor to find themselves at home among these objects.

In History, the paraphernalia of my interior life, Thompson evocatively demonstrates the relationship between form and feeling.