Neil Roberts was a well-known artist in Canberra. His untimely and accidental death in March 2002 when he appeared to be at the height of his career was a great loss. There had been many successful exhibitions of his work and he had undertaken several prestigious public art commissions. His career revealed many multifarious activities across a wide range of disciplines in the service of the art community. In the wider community there was also recognition of his unique art practice. I am sure I am not the only person who remembers his imaginative and poetic sculptural installation of a crop irrigation machine (Flood Plane) in 1990 with its neon text on the Nerang Pond at Floriade. An early example perhaps for his penchant for collecting. One of his neon sculptures, familiar to Canberrans (albeit in its now compromised state) is the one in Civic Square that runs around the top of the Playhouse Theatre (House Proud, 1998). He came to Canberra in 1983 after training in glassblowing at the JamFactory, Adelaide, and was one of the first younger artists to work with Klaus Moje in the early heady days of the Canberra School of Art Glass workshop. His studio Galerie Constantinople in Queanbeyan became a well frequented centre for artists and friends.

It is a tribute to the high regard in which he is held that a large audience attended the talk given by his partner and trustee of his estate, artist Barbara Campbell, at the Canberra Glassworks exhibition last week. Many reminiscences were shared and tributes paid to Roberts as an affectionate friend and a vital and energetic artist who was a great inspiration to others.

Campbell has curated this small but insightful exhibition from works that are not in the public domain. These works illustrate themes found in Roberts' art practice – his interest in the world of boxing with its potential for violence and the latent potency of the found objects he collected. The energy of physical violence allied to the fragility of glass as a medium is underscored by Roberts' use of lead lighting.

The Ring series 2000 brings together found objects and images of boxing. Roberts has used irregular sized pieces of discarded glass that he has coated with grey cement. On this muted grey background he has printed several images of pairs of male boxers. There is a grainy feel to these images like photographs from the sports pages of old newspapers. The space in between the images of boxes becomes a field of energy (an energy Roberts called "manly energy") – a potent space alive with the anticipation of action. In the four wall panels adjacent to these boxing images – for example in the panel titled A Swinging Left Hand, 1999 – Roberts uses the technique of strips of lead lighting and clear glass to map this field of energy.

The perceived latent nature of violence that is present in some objects is illustrated by a series of knives. Each knife is constructed of collected pieces – a rusted handle, string, twine, a glass blade and a cut piece of glass in the shape of a knife. Each piece comes with its own narrative but together they make up an impressive arsenal of potential aggression. Even in the collection of party knives (the Party Knife series, n. d.) where a series of knives have their blades covered with colourful buttons, the foil from chocolates, and party cut-outs, the threat of violence beneath their apparent air of benevolent pleasure cannot be disguised.

The Ramp, 2001, is one of the most complex of the works on view – the stained and weathered vaulting ramp is paired with a leadlight carapace that reflects myriad patterns on the sweat-stained covering beneath. The leadlight pattern of the glass owes its inspiration to the architectural structure of the Guggenheim Museum in New York – noted for the visual and structural concept of its architecture with its concentration of energy culminating in the central glass "eye" or as Roberts notes the sweet spot where the structure comes together at the top of the building.

In the Glassworks Roundhouse, Campbell has strategically placed a beautiful, fragile work by Roberts from 1988. In this work a mass of thin clear glass rods radiate out from a central metal axis. It reminds me of medical diagrams that are used to illustrate the mechanics of vision. The thin glass rods act as sight lines culminating in the back of the eye. Roberts calls this work One Man's Eyes. As a lyrical visual metaphor for Roberts' unique view of the world, it couldn't be better.