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GLASS : A CELEBRATION
JUNE 3 - AUGUST 11, 2000
In
this exhibition sixteen artists explore the magic of the luminous,
luminescent material that begins as fluid and transforms into glass.
Some of the artists create sculpture, defying the fragile properties
of the material; others blow glass into unique forms and shapes,
beginning with breath, air, fire and sand.
Two of the artists cast sculpture in glass,
while one lamp works the liquid medium, weaving it like silken threads.
And five artists create paintings of glass, a leitmotif throughout their work, unique in its quality and reflective nature.
Sculptors included in the exhibition are:
luminescent material that begins as fluid and transforms into glass.
Some of the artists create sculpture, defying the fragile properties
of the material; others blow glass into unique forms and shapes,
beginning with breath, air, fire and sand.
Two of the artists cast sculpture in glass,
while one lamp works the liquid medium, weaving it like silken threads.
And five artists create paintings of glass, a leitmotif throughout their work, unique in its quality and reflective nature.
Sculptors included in the exhibition are:
Nicolas Africano, WHITE
FIGURES, 2000, cast glass,51 x 18 x 22 inches
his subject of the past few years being his wife and muse Rebecca. When clothed, she wears
the simplest of garments, a pleated Grecian robe that touches the floor, a translucent cape.
At other times Africano's muse sits or stands in her luminous white nudity, a symbol of beauty,
purity and dream-like thought. New for Africano is a piece incorporating two standing nudes
on a pedestal as well as a 55-inch high figure garbed in a rose colored dress.
Ilan Averbuch, SKIRTS AND PANTS, 2000, glass and wood, 20 x 20 x 10 feet
Ilan Averbuch's monumental
sculpture SKIRTS AND PANTS
(After Duchamp) created for this exhibition in
glass and wood, is inspired by Duchamp's sculpture
THE BRIDE STRIPPED BARE BY HER BACHELORS EVEN.
Spanning 20 x 20 x 10 feet, dresses, pants,
abstract forms in glass supported by a wooden framework,
dance through space with exuberance and power.
While paying homage to one of the modern masters, Averbuch's sculpture, like most of his work, has a duality of strength
and playfulness. It is filled with movement and as always in his approach to materials, is an unconventional use of the medium.
(After Duchamp) created for this exhibition in
glass and wood, is inspired by Duchamp's sculpture
THE BRIDE STRIPPED BARE BY HER BACHELORS EVEN.
Spanning 20 x 20 x 10 feet, dresses, pants,
abstract forms in glass supported by a wooden framework,
dance through space with exuberance and power.
While paying homage to one of the modern masters, Averbuch's sculpture, like most of his work, has a duality of strength
and playfulness. It is filled with movement and as always in his approach to materials, is an unconventional use of the medium.
and archaeologic in their appearance.
Calderon's work has long been inspired by multi-cultural references,
often spiritual and/or religious.
In ESPINA he looks to ancient Japanese Buddhist sculpture, particularly
the hair-dos or topknots, to create a sensual, iconic image in glass
that has the patina of an aged green-bronze vessel.
Mark Calderon, DOLOROSA, cast glass, 2000, 19 x 6 x 6 in
Viola Frey, DESTRUCTION WOMAN and MAN, 1992, painted glass, 14 x 10 x 10 inches
Viola Frey's grandmother
heads in glass are a testimony to the joy of color the artist uses to
infuse her ceramics with a life of their own.
Bold, wry, filled with intelligence, these heads are unmistakable signature Frey works. Accompanying the grandmothers are the head of a colorful rooster and lively paletted amphora-like vessels painted with Frey's everyman and everywoman images.
Bold, wry, filled with intelligence, these heads are unmistakable signature Frey works. Accompanying the grandmothers are the head of a colorful rooster and lively paletted amphora-like vessels painted with Frey's everyman and everywoman images.
Brian Hirst combines glass and stainless steel in his sculptures,
often depicting a primordial vessel or triangular pot in bas-relief,
a reference to fire. The vessel, of flat glass, sits on a shallow steel
shelf,
the background rubbed like an etching plate,
the totality an evocation of cultures past.
His pure glass pieces from the "Guardian" series are weighty
vessels
edged in platinum and gold with a small "shield-like" emblem
of the primordial vessel as armor and adornment.
Brian Hirst, GUARDIAN II, 2000, glass, 11 x 9 x 5 inches
Joey Kirkpatrick and Flora Mace, STILL LIFE, 2000, glass amd wood, 24 x 39 x 39 inches
Joey
Kirkpatrick and Flora Mace,
an artistic team for more than 20 years,
bring scale and color in glass to a high pitch.
Their larger than life still-lifes may include
bananas, apples, pears, plums, strawberries in a
3 - 4 foot diameter bowl, a voluptuous visual feast.
Karen LaMonte, VESTIGE, 2000, cast glass, 60 x 40 x 30 inches
a heraldic torso. Karen LaMonte's new cast glass dress
is life-size in scale, created in Prague where she has resided
for the past year as a Fulbright Fellow.
Of subtle green hue, the dress seems to sway gently in the breeze.
Her life-size dress is accompanied by three smaller cast dresses,
poetic suggestions of the human figure.
Ginny Rufner, TRIPLE BASKET DOUBLE LEAF CIRCLE, 2000, steel and glass, 60 x 57 x 12 inches
Ginny Ruffner's new work combines metal and glass, using
the metal as both drawing line in space and container for magical glass
shapes.
Her new stainless steel VIRTUAL VESSEL is filled with clear glass spheres and crystalline leaves, creating one sparkle and reflection upon another.
Wildly imaginative and filled with whimsy,
Ruffner's new works take her to a new level in the medium.
Her new stainless steel VIRTUAL VESSEL is filled with clear glass spheres and crystalline leaves, creating one sparkle and reflection upon another.
Wildly imaginative and filled with whimsy,
Ruffner's new works take her to a new level in the medium.
Benjamin Moore, OPALINE EXTERIOR FOLD SERIES, 1994, glass,
3 elements, 7 x 16 inches,
11 x 12 inches, 22 x 9 inches
in their elegance and simplicity. His primary commitments are to form,
simplicity and balance. While the purity of the shape, particularly
his invented and signature interior fold, is key for the artist,
color factors into his recipe with equal consideration and contemplation.
He eschews color as adornment, preferring the sensation of a single color
and its visual vibration.
Debora Moore, PAPHIOPEDLIUM, 2000, glass, 24 x 15 inches
Debora Moore has staked out a unique territory in glass,
rendering orchid flowers and plants in nature's perfection.
She works to achieve harmony of color, form, grace
and nature in her orchids while capturing the fragility
and exotic nature of these rare and evanescent blooms.
Debora Moore, BRASSIA SPIDER ORCHID, 2000,
glass, 22 x 19 inches
Painters in the exhibition are:
David Bierk, A EULOGY (LIFE), TO CLAESZ, 2000, oil/canvas, 49 x 49 inches
David Bierk's new still-life
paintings inspired by Dutch masters, incorporate images of glass from
centuries past, accompanied by
fruits, pewter plates, the stuff of sumptuous repasts.
While paying homage to masters from art history,
the images are painted in Bierk's own style,
filled with gusto, broad strokes, vibrant palette.
They are framed conceptually to juxtapose a
celebration of art history with a simple, mundane,
contemporary and ordinary material, be it steel or concrete.
fruits, pewter plates, the stuff of sumptuous repasts.
While paying homage to masters from art history,
the images are painted in Bierk's own style,
filled with gusto, broad strokes, vibrant palette.
They are framed conceptually to juxtapose a
celebration of art history with a simple, mundane,
contemporary and ordinary material, be it steel or concrete.
Carolyn Brady, CHANDELIER, 2000, watercolor on paper,
60 x 39 inches
Carolyn Brady's new watercolor CHANDELIER, created for the show,
as so many of the above pieces, is a symbol of light, a bearer of light,
an antique chandelier suspended from the ceiling. It radiates warmth
as the heartbeat of the room and the core of the ceiling, the focal point
of this luminous work, part of her recent interest in and depiction
of extraordinary interior spaces.
Don Eddy, G-IV, 1979-1980, acrylic on canvas, 40 x 30 inches
During
the late 1970s, Don Eddy
decided to abandon color briefly
and created a series of paintings entitled "Glassware"
of glasses filling glass shelves on an etagere-construction he built in
his studio.
Color in these works is the color of the reflected
environment on the surface of the glassware.
Each of his glass paintings, as GIV, included in the show,
is entitled simply with the letter G and a roman numeral, each an
exploration of light, reflection, ordered chaos in acrylic on canvas.
Lucy Mackenzie, EARLY SNOWDROPS, 1991, oil on board, 9 x 11 inches
Lucy Mackenzie's pure still-life of sweet peas in a glass vase
depicts in its simplicity the elegance that is the medium.
Seeking peace, quiet and tranquillity in her intimate-scale paintings, Mackenzie invites the viewer to study the glass as it transforms flower stems and allows the eye to travel through the vase and alight on the serenity of the gray background to the bouquet.
Joseph Raffael, GANESH, 1990, watercolor on paper, 67 x 44 inches
One of Joseph Raffael's signature images is monumental
scale still-life in watercolor of objects that surround him in his home.
By rendering intimate objects in larger than life scale, the artist illuminates the viewer's perception of the medium that is the subject of the show.
In GANESH the artist paints an abundance of glass objects that fill
his wife's dresser with an altar-like still-life; glass beads,
glass bowls filled with potpourri, and a mirror or "glass" filled
with light as the luminescent backdrop.
This is a show to delight the eye and invite the mind to ponder the infinite possibilities
provided by glass; it is a celebration of the medium.
