Clare Belfrage has maintained a distinguished arts practice for over 35 years.
Her detailed and complex glass drawings on blown glass forms reflect the high-level skill and innovative approach to her craft that make her one of Australia’s most renowned artists in this medium.
Inspired by nature and its various rhythms and energies, Clare’s unique sculptural objects express her fine attention to detail, a fascination with pattern and rhythm and a deep connection to the natural world.
“As an artist, my point of view is often looking from close up. The big feeling that ‘small’ gives me is intimate and powerful.
The industry in nature, its rhythm and energy, dramatic and delicate still holds my fascination as does the language and processes of glass.”
In Sight Dark Purple and Blue, 2018
A Measure of Time | A Film By Randy Larcombe
Clare Belfrage | The Artist Studio | National Gallery of Australia
Collection in Blue and Brown, 2020
Clare has received several prestigious awards, including the inaugural JamFactory FUSE Glass Prize in 2016 and the Tom Malone Glass Prize, Art Gallery of Western Australia in 2005 and 2011.
She was the featured artist for the 2018 SALA Festival and celebrated as one of South Australia’s most influential artists working in a craft medium through JamFactory’s Icon series, presenting a solo exhibition, A Measure of Time, for a 3-year national tour. She was most recently winner of the inaugural Premio Arteria for the Venice Glass Week HUB Exhibition in 2025.
Clare continues to exhibit extensively and is represented in major public collections throughout Australia, the US and Europe including National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, most State Galleries in Australia, Corning Museum of Glass, USA, Tacoma Museum of Glass, USA, Ebeltoft Glass Museum, Denmark, Castello Sforzesco Museum, Italy, and the Nijima Glass Museum, Japan.
She is currently Adjunct Professor at Adelaide University.