back to artist
vetri artists
william traver gallery
contact
home
back to artist
vetri artists
william traver gallery
contact
|
|
|
"New Work"
Exhibition Dates: July 1st - 24th, 2006
(Seattle, WA) Vetri International Glass is proud to present a solo exhibition featuring new work by Canadian artist John Nutter. Starting with two basic forms - a flat disk with a hole in the center and a simple boat shape - Nutter's sand-carved glass sculptures present an impressive range of archetypal imagery alluding to the circle of life, the four basic elements, and the voyage between lives or states of being.
"My aim is to take a piece of flat glass, manufactured to optical perfection in a state-of-the-art factory and through the process of controlled erosion (sandblasting), transform them into unique, translucent, primitive artifacts," says Nutter. The natural and mythological imagery in his work speaks to the viewer on a primal level, recalling ancient cave paintings, Celtic ruins and ancient rituals.
In Nutter's Fire Boats and Water Ships, a basic boat shape is filled with either fire or water, referring to burial rituals and the idea of transformation and rebirth. The cyclical nature of life is also apparent in his Four Seasons and Four Elements Medallions.
Pieces like Sunflower Key and Frog Pond bring back childhood memories of playing outside in the summertime. Both pieces start with Nutter's signature disk form, around which a spiral pattern winds, referring to the plowed fields of his prairie upbringing. Sunflowers, dragonflies, frogs and water lilies are magnified on separate sections of glass, which fit into the disk forms.
John Nutter runs his own glass studio in Vancouver, BC. Until attending a furnace casting session at the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, NY in 1997, he primarily focused on creating large-scale architectural glass pieces - stained and carved glass windows and walls. While at Corning, Nutter explored their world-famous museum and library and was inspired by the work of Bertil Vallien, as well as the Czech artists Libensky and Brychtov. As part of his experience, he cast two glass disks with holes in their centers. He was intrigued by this form and has stayed with it over the years, using it as a constant in an ongoing body of work.
John Nutter's"New Work" will be on display through July 24th, 2006.
|
|
|
|