EXHIBITION DATES: 13 February – 11 April, 2026
OFFICIAL OPENING: Friday 13 February, 6pm
COST: Free
Details
Bean Soup is a playful and immersive exhibition by Canberra based glass artist Bailey Donovan. Centred on Bailey’s recurring glass bean forms, the exhibition brings together blown sculptures, wall mounted works and rich colour compositions that explore the relationships between domestic craft, queer identity and the expressive nature of glass. The result is a joyful and gently surreal installation that invites visitors to experience pattern, colour and form in surprising and intimate ways.
The bean has become a signature shape within Bailey’s practice. At once humorous, bodily and familiar, it acts as a soft counterpoint to the traditional aesthetics of the glassblowing studio, where refinement, symmetry and technical correctness often determine value. By embracing irregular silhouettes, uneven contours and tactile materiality, Bailey offers a different way of understanding glass, one that opens space for play, vulnerability and queer expression.
Bean Soup draws on Bailey’s ongoing interest in domestic textiles, particularly gingham, crochet and other patterned fabrics that carry family memory and cultural history. These textile references are translated into glass through cane work, colour overlays and patterning techniques that shift and distort as the material moves through heat and gravity. The works echo the comfort of handmade objects, the textures of home and the power of everyday materials to hold personal meaning.
The exhibition is filled with clusters of beans in varied scales and colours, from small sized pieces that resemble sweets or small collectibles to larger blown forms that lean toward abstraction. Some works hang in gentle arrangements, while others gather on plinths in compositions that reference kitchen jars, sewing baskets or piles of fabric scraps. The installation balances whimsy with intention, encouraging slow looking and curiosity.
Throughout the exhibition, Bailey invites audiences to consider how objects associated with warmth and domesticity can be reimagined within a contemporary glass context. The work challenges assumptions about perfection, finish and seriousness within the medium, instead embracing a sensibility shaped by humour, softness and the lived experiences of queer life.
Bean Soup brings these ideas together in an environment that is generous, colourful and deeply rooted in material exploration. It celebrates the possibilities of glass while offering a space for reflection, comfort and delight.
About the Artist
Bailey Donovan is a glass artist based in Canberra. His playful, tactile practice explores domesticity, identity, and imperfection through blown glass and installation. Bailey’s work embraces camp, community, and material joy. Celebrating the lumpy, the soft, and the queer.
He is completing a Master of Philosophy at the Australian National University and has exhibited widely across Australia and overseas, with recent presentations including the Toyama International Glass Exhibition, the Tom Malone Prize, the Waterhouse Natural Science Art Prize. His work has been recognised through awards, grants and professional development opportunities, including a residency at the Australian National University Glass Workshop and support from ArtsACT, Helpmann Academy and Carclew.
Teaching and community engagement are also central to his practice. Bailey has taught glass at the Australian National University, the University of Sydney and JamFactory, and is committed to creating inclusive spaces for emerging artists and students.
Bailey Donovan, portrait, 2024, Bri Hammond