Madeline Cardone

Glass sculptor

©Matteo Macri

©Catherine Feint

©Brooke McEachern

©Bridie Mackay

Where skin holds in the air

Madeline’s black glass works explore themes of the body and the land
Her sculptures are made with a variety of techniques, including moulding and slumping
She was awarded the Aldo Bellini Acquisition Prize for the Milano Vetro Under-35 Glass and Design Competition in 2024

It was in the corridors of Art School in Canberra that Madeline Cardone first encountered the world of glass. She took up a module in glasswork and has remained with the craft ever since. In her practice today, glass bends and resists, pushes and pulls as she shapes it into tense yet playful sculptures, reminiscent of sheets, fabric or skin. Madeline's Italian heritage meets her Australian upbringing in a material exploration of texture, sheen and form. A master of mould making, one of her most poignant works emerges from a bone-like structure first shaped by her ceramicist mother during her own student days, four decades earlier. Through this reclamation, Madeline upholds her family's legacy of creation.

Interview

©Matteo Macri

What is a central message of your work?: Intangibility is integral to what I try to capture in material, but to allude to the intangible means we can only capture so much. As a person living somewhere else and taking on other cultures, I try to convey that transformation is a form of decay and of returning to the essence of things.
How do you express innovation in your work?: At university we learned traditional methods of finishing. In my work, I question why imperfections are considered undesirable, and what constitutes a 'finished' piece. I want the material to be a form of expression in itself.
How has your Italian-Australian heritage informed your work?: I come from a family of makers. My grandparents all practised craft, and I was always around materials. I found a connection with people of European heritage who came to Australia as they often took up manual labour. It made me think, 'That’s an interesting link to what I do.'
How do you reference the body in your work?: I am Australian, but things feed into my personality and my Italian heritage. I think about this tension between interior, exterior, neither here nor there, and so I play with surfaces and create the tension of that push and pull. What is formed is a skin-like object, because I feel like I am a skin that exists between those two worlds.

Madeline Cardone is a rising star: she began her career in 2018