Lighting

A New Handblown Lighting Range From Ross Gardam, Inspired By Venetian Glass

Handblowing glass is a painstaking, precise craft. It’s most commonly associated with Venice, where artisans have been practising glassblowing for an estimated 1,500 years.

Ross Gardam is an expert lighting designer much closer to home. Though inspired by Venetian techniques, his new Ceto collection employs contemporary glassblowing, to create a delicate ripple effect through the glass, giving every piece in this collection a unique personality.

Written
by
Sasha Gattermayr

The Ceto floor lamp. Photo – Haydn Cattach.

Left: A Hemera Desk Lamp under construction. Photo – Tatjana Plitt. Right: The Ceto wall lamp. Photo – Haydn Cattach.

Ross Gardam and team. Photo – Tatjana Plitt.

The Ceto pendant light and chandelier. Photo – Haydn Cattach.

The full Ceto range. Photo – Mr. P Studios.

Writer
Sasha Gattermayr
23rd of April 2020

When we last checked in with Ross Gardam, he was shortlisted for The Design Files 2019 Design Awards with his STUNNING Hemera Desk Lamp and Nebulae Chandelier Collection. Since then, his practice has grown and moved quite a lot, focusing on breaking into the American market, and releasing a raft of new products.

One of those is the Ceto collection, a product that has taken over a year to develop. Inspired by Venetian glassblowing artisans, Ross and his team designed a glass light shade following the same Murano steps, which requires glass be blown into a preliminary mould (named an ‘optic’) before the secondary cast, which gives the fitting its final shape. ‘We wanted to use that traditional technique in a more abstract way,’ explains Ross, describing the unique shadow the double mould method imprints on the final pieces. ‘Each pattern has its own distinct personality.’

Despite its universality in function, each piece of handblown glass contains subtle variations to its surface and form. And there are a lot of them, as the sculptural shade is available as a chandelier, floor lamp, wall light and pendant!

‘We wanted to create something that was truly universal  – a wall light, a floor light, a pendant, a chandelier, we didn’t have anything in our range that spanned across the decorative categories.’

It’s the most versatile collection the Melbourne studio has produced to date, and we love it!

Browse the Ceto collection and Ross’s other products here.

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