NZ Glassworks Opens 2026 With Binary Coded Geometries

New Zealand Glassworks Te Whare Tūhua o Te Ao (NZG) presents its first solo exhibition of the year, Binary Coded Geometries by Whanganui artist Rosalind Fitz Patrick. Selected through an open call, the exhibition highlights NZG’s commitment to supporting contemporary glass art practitioners.

Binary Coded Geometries is a new body of work that explores pattern, structure and fluidity through kiln formed glass. Influenced by her background in textiles and fabrics, Fitz Patrick works with glass as both a structural and flexible material, examining the tension between rigidity and fluidity. “I’m interested in how something that appears rigid can still hold movement,” Fitz Patrick says. “Glass has this quiet tension. It can feel fixed, but it also responds, shifts and changes depending on how it’s constructed and experienced.”

Fitz Patrick returned to Whanganui after 33 years away, initially intending to retire following a long career in business. Instead, she found herself drawn back into creative practice, enrolling at UCOL and completing a Diploma in Arts and Design in 2019. Since then, she has developed a distinctive approach to glass that reflects her longstanding interest in pattern, materiality and geometric systems.

The works in Binary Coded Geometries emerge from Fitz Patrick’s experimental manipulation of sheet and accessory glass into modular arrangements. Wall-based works shift and expand beyond what you may expect of the medium, while plinth sculptures remain more structured and contained. Together, the works offer different ways of holding and shaping space, highlighting the contrast between the solid presence of glass and the surrounding air and light.

Binary Coded Geometries will be on display from 11 May to 21 June at New Zealand Glassworks, 2 Rutland Street, Whanganui.

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