Local and international printmakers explore the possibilities of working in glass for Printmakers Fired: Works on Paper and in Glass, March 18 – April 23, 2005 at The Bullseye Connection Gallery.
Portland, OR –The Bullseye Connection Gallery presents “Printmakers Fired: Works on Paper and in Glass” from March 18 – April 23, 2005. The exhibition includes work from Nigel Barnes, Steve Royston Brown, Jef Gunn, Kim Osgood, and Martha Pfanschmidt. These printmakers were offered the opportunity to work with glass during a recent artist residency project with Bullseye Glass Co.
Nigel Barnes, a Portland artist, has an intense connection with the natural. His ink drawings and prints speak of textures and objects worn away by the elements. “I find drawing rocks challenging,” says Barnes. “For some reason, glass has been a medium that feels attuned to depicting rocks…It strikes me as paradoxical that such a fragile, ephemeral medium should lend itself so readily to the depiction of something so everlasting.”
Steve Royston Brown is a senior lecturer at the University of Hertfordshire in Hatfield, England. He integrates printed surfaces and ceramic artifacts, creating a sense of forensic or archeological intrigue. “It is the physicality of the material which excites me most about working with glass,” says Brown. “The dry, dense presence of the clay surface is swapped for an interior where images can float between layers and are affected by ambient light. The new aesthetic required me to leave my interest in architectural surfaces behind and look at the kind of patterns which may inhabit this interior world.”
Jef Gunn is a Portland artist who has taught at PNCA, the Oregon College of Art and Craft, and the Pratt Fine Arts Center in Seattle. His abstract paintings and prints are influenced by natural forms but also by emotion. “Of late I’ve been thinking of painting and printmaking in terms of layers, the way music can be seen (heard) as multiple, simultaneous layers of patterns,” says Gunn. “Working with glass truly plays upon and accentuates this way of seeing the artistic process and the experience of working in layers of transparent glass has already begun to influence my regular studio work.”
Kim Osgood’s painterly monotypes translate beautifully into layered glass panels. “For her, art making is a meditation,” says Linda Brady Tesner, director of the Ronna and Eric Hoffman Gallery of Contemporary Art at Lewis & Clark College, Portland, Oregon. “Her works are not preconceived; she may be inspired by a tulip she spies en route to her studio, or the memory of architecture seen in extensive travels to Spain, Italy, or Mexico. These sights and sensations are the elements she assimilates and reconfigures into her compositions.”
Martha Pfanschmidt, who teaches at PNCA, PSU and Marylhurst University in Portland, creates colorful glass collages in translucent, glowing colors inspired by her surroundings. “Making art is speaking in a visual language,” says Pfanschmidt. “Color, tone, surface, line and shape are the words which make up that language. Prints, drawings or glass are merely dialects of the same language. With this language I make visual my impressions while taking my daily walk.”
Bullseye regularly invites artists to participate in residencies at the Research and Education department of their glass factory. "Working with artists keeps our perspective on the material fresh." remarks Bullseye director Lani McGregor. "Working with artists whose primary medium is not glass can go beyond even fresh - into some enchantingly uncharted territory."
To request additional information, images, or schedule a studio tour or interview with an artist or gallery staff member, please contact Nicole Leaper by phone at 503-227-0222 or by email at nicoleleaper@bullseyeglass.com.
For purchase information please contact Rebecca Rockom by phone at 503-227-0222 or by email at rebeccarockom@bullseyeglass.com.
Download: Printmakers March 3, 2005