Marcel Hoogstad Hay

Marcel Hoogstad Hay is an Australian artist working primarily with blown glass. He utilises the material and optical qualities of glass to explore ideas around perception, particularly of the physical world and astronomical phenomena.

Hoogstad Hay received a Bachelor of Visual Arts with Honours in 2012 from the Glass Workshop at the ANU School of Art and Design, Canberra and in 2014 completed the two-year Associate Training Program at JamFactory, Adelaide.

Hoogstad Hay was awarded the Australian Government Endeavour Fellowship in 2015 to undertake a residency at Berlin Glas e.V. (Germany), and holds works in the collection of the Ernsting Foundation Glass Museum, Germany. He has been a scholarship student at Penland School of Crafts (USA) and a Rosenberg Resident at Salem State University (USA). Hoogstad Hay has been a finalist in both the FUSE Glass Prize and the AGWA Tom Malone Prize, and was the 2023 recipient of the FUSE Glass Artist Residency at JamFactory. Recently he was a finalist in the Rigg Design Prize at the National Gallery of Victoria.

Marcel Hoogstad Hay is interested in the ways people perceive the world; our perceptions of space, time and matter, and how these notions relate to physics. He is fascinated by the physical forces in the universe, and the quanta it is built from. Using the materiality of glass, he explores these ideas through line, form, and the distortion of image.

Hoogstad Hay’s work embodies aspects of the physical universe at both astronomical and quantum scales. He uses traditional Venetian techniques to create complex, gestural linework; alluding to topography, light bending, and the theoretical movements of the smallest pieces of matter. Through his work he explores perceptual elements; inviting the viewer to engage with the work, and contemplate the self and our place in the universe.