Barovier&Toso ARTE presents artist Amy Thai
Amy Thai (b.1992) is a sculptor working with stone, glass, and porcelain. Rooted in her Vietnamese-Australian heritage and shaped by an international practice spanning Australia, Europe and China, Thai has pursued mastery within the world’s most storied craft traditions. She trained in botanical art in Paris, the center of floral artistry, where she developed skills in creating ephemeral large-scale botanical sculptures. In Carrara, renowned since Roman times for its exceptional marble, she personally selects each marble block and works it by hand, allowing the stone’s unique veining, coloration, and character to guide her process. On the island of Murano in Venice, famed for its centuries-old glassmaking tradition, she collaborates closely with Barovier&Toso ARTE and master glassblowers to create imposing glass pieces that push the medium’s limits. Most recently, she has explored porcelain techniques in Jingdezhen, China’s ‘Porcelain Capital’, with over 1,700 years of ceramic history. Throughout her exploration of these materials, Thai draws consistent inspiration from botanical forms, exploring ephemeral and permanent aspects of the natural world.
Thai’s sculptures embody a quiet sensuality through soft curves and tactile surfaces, while also suggesting a meditative, spiritual dimension. She seeks not merely to carve marble but to liberate an inner essence from within. Fascinated by the interplay of movement and light on surface, many of her works appear to ripple or flow, as if marble could bend or breathe. Light plays an integral role – grazing or filling concavities, while shadows deepen the emotional resonance of her forms. For Thai, sculpting is both a physical and emotional act. Whether working with marble's resistance, glass's molten fluidity, or porcelain's delicate plasticity, her process becomes a direct translation of feeling into form. This embodied approach also extends into performance, where her direct interaction with the pieces – touching, turning, positioning – becomes part of their expressive vocabulary.
Thai's work stands at the intersection of ancient craft traditions and contemporary artistic inquiry. Her sculptures address fundamental questions about permanence and transience, hardness and softness, the constructed and the organic. Through her mastery of flowers, stone, glass, and ceramic, she creates works that invite physical engagement – pieces designed to be walked around, touched, and experienced from multiple angles. Her sculptures transform with the viewer's movement, while multi-element works can be physically rotated by hand to create new compositional arrangements. Her strategic use of surface textures captures shifting light and shadow throughout the day.
Current Exhibition
Art of the Treasure Hunt: The 2025 edition ‘Gardens in my Dreams’
Art of The Treasure Hunt, founded by Luziah Hennessy, is a prestigious summer-long contemporary art exhibition that has been bringing international artists to the Chianti Classico region since 2016. The 2025 edition features Amy Thai, whose works are exhibited across various locations, alongside other international artists including Apollinaria Broche, Pring Bunnag, Sam Falls, Patrick Jacobs, Jonas Mekas, Massimo Listri, and Aidan Salakhova. The exhibition transforms historic wineries into unique gallery spaces where contemporary art dialogues with centuries-old architecture, vineyard landscapes, and wine-making traditions. Taking place at Castello di Brolio and Felsina, two of the region's most prestigious wineries selected for both their exceptional wine quality and rich historical significance, the exhibition creates an immersive experience that blends art, history, and the sensory world of the Chianti region.
After having been taught marble carving techniques in Carrara and collaborating with Barovier&Toso ARTE to realize her ideas through the skilled hands of glass masters, Amy also completed a month-long residency in Jingdezhen, China, exploring the ancient art of ceramics at the Sanbao Ceramic Art Institute. This diverse material exploration across different traditional craft centres has shaped her unique artistic voice. A selection of works in marble, glass and porcelain has been lent to the Chianti exhibition by Barovier&Toso ARTE. The works in porcelain are shown for the first time.
RECOGNITION AND EXHIBITIONS
Amy Thai's works have been described by the New York Times as one of Australia's leading artists who is changing the floral landscape, she was interviewed by VOGUE Living Australia and she was the national winner of Australian Women's Small Business Champions (2022). She has been an artist-in-residence at Lapis Lazuli: artE, Venice (2023) and participated in the subsequent group exhibition 'H2O Venezia: Diari d'acqua / Water Diaries' (parallel to the 2024 Biennale di Venezia), in collaboration with Fondazione Barovier&Toso, with her work subsequently entering the Fondazione's collection. She was selected by Barovier&Toso ARTE from the Biennale 2024 exhibition and is now represented by the gallery. Her work was featured in the 2025 inaugural exhibition 'Glass Art in Dialogue / Arte del vetro in dialogo' by Barovier&Toso ARTE on Murano. Her works were also shown by Barovier&Toso ARTE in renowned architect Pierre-Yves Rochon project Villa Heritage at the Salone del Mobile in Milan 2025 and are now on view at the 2025 edition of the Art of the Treasure Hunt, ‘Gardens in my Dreams’.
EXHIBITION CATALOGUES
Philippe Malgouyres, ‘« Undercurrent » d’Amy Thai : dans la lenteur du flot’ / ‘”Undercurrent” by Amy Thai: In the Slowness of the Flow’ / ‘“Corrente sotterranea” di Amy Thai: nella lentezza del flusso’, in Mara Hofmann (ed.), H2O Venezia: Diari d’acqua / Water Diaries, exh. cat. SPUMA – Space for the Arts, Venice, 18 April – 24 Nov. 2024, Milan: Electa, 2024, pp. 62-68.
Mara Hofmann, Glass Art in Dialogue / Arte del vetro in dialogo, exh. cat. Palazzo Barovier&Toso, Venice, 13 February – 8 June 2025, Venice: Barovier&Toso ARTE, pp. 13-27.
ART GALLERY BAROVIER&TOSO ARTE
Palazzo Barovier&Toso
Fondamenta Manin 1/D
30141 Murano (Venice)
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