About Us
Our Studio Glass Workshop program in Sydney, Australia, runs throughout the year from our purpose-built glass studio at Studio4 in Sydenham. Our glass studio is fully equipped with state-of-the-art glass kilns, cutting, grinding, and polishing equipment, as well as darkroom and screen printing facilities.
The studio glass workshop program was founded in 2014 by Australian contemporary artist Kate Baker. Each year the program expands to accommodate the growing needs of continuing students and now incorporates a series of masterclasses with local and visiting artists, sharing their unique technical skills and knowledge in glass.
All our studio glass workshops are conducted by professional artists with university degree level expertise or greater, specialising in Studio Glass. The program is growing to include visiting professional artists both nationally and internationally.
Director Dr. Kate Baker
Kate Baker is an Australian contemporary artist, researcher, and educator whose practice is reshaping the field of studio glass. Holding a PhD from the Australian National University’s School of Art & Design, her research has redefined the possibilities of studio glass by marrying it with cutting-edge digital imaging—an investigation that has set new benchmarks for the field globally.
Committed to nurturing the next generation of artists, Baker has lectured and advised at the University of Sydney’s Sydney College of the Arts, taught in community programs, and shared her expertise as a visiting artist at conferences and university settings internationally.
In 2014 she established Studio4, a purpose-built facility dedicated to experimental and architectural-scale glass projects. A hub for education, innovation, and fabrication in glass, Studio4 supports artists and designers seeking to push technical and conceptual boundaries.
Baker’s work has been showcased at leading public institutions globally —including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Corning Museum of Glass, the Shanghai Museum of Glass, and Japan’s Toyama Glass Art Museum, amongst others—and has earned a series of national and international awards and scholarships. Her artworks reside in museum collections across Europe, Asia, North America, and Australia, underscoring the global impact of her practice.
Educator Dan De Nardis
Dan De Nardis is an visual artist based in Sydney’s Inner West, living and working on the traditional lands of the Gadigal people. Originating from Adelaide, she completed a Bachelor of Contemporary Arts at the University of South Australia in 2020 and worked as teaching assistant for hot glass classes, and later, graduated with First Class Honours in a Bachelor of Advanced Studies (Honours) in Visual Arts at the University of Sydney in 2023 - earning the University Medal and the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Honours Prize.
Dan presented her first solo exhibition, “Ponderings of a Weary Mind”, at Disorder Gallery in 2023, of which one of the displayed works, “Depression (2022)”, featured in Corning Museum of Glass's annual exhibition-in-print, “New Glass Review” that same year. In 2024, she served as a Board Director for Ausglass - the Australian Association of Glass Artists, coming into the role with a particular goal of supporting emerging artists, and promoting the efforts of small glass studios nationally.
Through her practice, Dan explores emotion and the struggles of the human mind, with her current focus centering on experiences related to mental health, navigating personal narratives, identity, and fear. She openly discusses her personal ongoing difficulties with Anxiety; writing and creating around her experiences to encourage honest dialogue around mental conditions, and challenge the stigma that surrounds them. Through her monstrous sculptures and disquieting illustrations, she delves into the darker, more uncomfortable elements of human experience to bring them to light.
Dan has had a presence at Studio4 since late 2021 - as a resident artist, studio assistant, and workshop instructor. Her journey in glassmaking can be traced back to 2017, and her years have been spent developing a practice with strong roots in both hot-sculpting blown glass and kiln-casting complex sculptural forms.