Wednesday, February 15, 2012

"Kith & Kin" Symposium at Sunderland University

This past 10th February, 2012 I had the chance to attend the Glass and Ceramics Symposium at The National Glass Centre, Sunderland. 
It was a great opportunity to understand a bit better the artists' point of view when creating the work that was part of the "Kith and Kin" New Glass and Ceramics Exhibit. [Barnaby Barford, Niel Brownsword, David Cushway, Erin Dickson & Jeffrey Sarmiento, Cerith Wyn Evans, Angela Jarman, June Kingsbury, Rachel Kneebone, Andrew Livingstone, James Maskrey, CHristopher McHugh, Colin Rennie, Nick Renshaw, Gabrielle Wambaugh].

I really enjoyed how each artist explained their own way of rationalizing their art and the process in which they work, from the idea to the finished product. On top, you can see some of the work that caught my eye, obviously most of it is glass... 1] Colin Rennie: With his piece, he wants to explain "Negative Entropy: measuring the lack of chaos in a closed system". His process is mainly inspired by science and technical data. 2] Angela Jarman: "Carambola" flawless work inspired in the genetic intervention of man over nature. 3] James Maskrey: "The Worst Journey in the World" hot blown bottles and glass sculpted detail on top. 4] Jeffrey Sarmiento & Erin Dickson: "Emotional Glass" is really interesting because the piece was thought and built for the exhibit's location. This is the 3D representation of what a leak looks like, after taking a time-lapse of the leak for some hours. All the drops on the floor were traced and then rendered into the final work. It is amazing to see that stands from floor to ceiling, i'm not sure how many sheets of 7mm flat opaque glass are stacked together but I' sure it weighs a ton!! 5] Cerith Wyn Evans: "Permit Yourself". I don't have any pictures of the work of June Kingsbury, but I strongly recommend to take a look, her work focuses on memory and absence and it is worth seeing. The rest of the work in the exhibit can be found here!

So there's still time for people in the area to take one last look, since the exhibit ends on the 19th February, 2012. Enjoy!
~ photos by julibd ~