2020 SAXE Emerging Artists Catalogue
2020 SAXE Emerging Artists Catalogue Over the years, the Glass Art Society has selected and commended a number of emerging artists for their promising talent based on a rigorous, competitive jurying process. Applicants, nominated by academics and curators, are evaluated by a professional panel of jurors based on the following criteria: • An emerging artist using glass as their primary medium • Not currently enrolled in a training or education program (including MFA or PhD) • Not a current or past presenter of a lecture or demo at a GAS conference In 1980, Dorothy and the late George Saxe began collecting glass art. Over the course of their marriage, they built one of the most premier contemporary glass collections found in the United States. As collectors, the Saxes supported artists, galleries, institutions, and have played an immense role in elevating and increasing appreciation of glass art. At the 2015 GAS conference, the Saxes were honored with a tribute event which helped establish the Saxe Emerging Artists Lecture Fund, an endowment to support future generations of glass artists. Donations can be made on our website at glassart.org. At the 49th GAS conference in Småland, Sweden, three selected artists will have the opportunity to introduce themselves and their work to a large audience of artists, academics, educators, collectors, critics, and peers at the Emerging Artists Panel.
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2020 SAXE Emerging Artists GRACIA NASH .........................................Pg. 4
JOSHUA KERLEY ....................................Pg. 12
NATE RICCIUTO ...................................Pg. 20 2020 SAXE Emerging Artists Catalogue | Page 3
GRACIA NASH Artist Statement Through glass, the body, and alternative textile practices my work examines the transience of identity; specifically in the universal search for emotional and physical comfort in one’s definition of self. I am interested in the material qualities and limitations of glass, including luminosity, flexibility, and fragility; and the ways in which these can be expressed and communicated through the body. My work references my sense of self through the physical body and the abstraction of the body through representation of our largest and most sensitive organ—our skin. Skin is our body’s interactive membrane—permeable, manipulable, soft. I combine fused glass and high grade silicone to create glass textiles and flexible glass objects. These objects and textiles parallel skin, and they communicate with the body through the object, the performance, and the subequent documentation of that performance. Often these objects are interacted with through the ordinary action of touch: glass with the whole body, glass with the hands of the performer, glass with the hands of the viewer. By using my body as an affected material in performance the activated touch has the ability to elicit a visceral response; relatable and transferable. My work also includes the use of alternative glass materials like reflective glass beads typically used in industrial purposes to mark areas of roads to not enter. This material speaks to places of safety; places where one can be alone. I use these beads to create places of comfort where self transience occurs. Places where physical and emotional struggle occur but result in growth and change. These objects reference and interact with the body to challenge ideas of comfort and perception.
Biography Gracia Nash is a glass, performance, and multi-media artist based in Rochester, New York. She graduated from Alfred University in 2014 with a BFA and recently completed her MFA in Glass from Rochester Institute of Technology. Her work explores glass textiles, skin, the body, identity, and perception. Nash utilizes glass and the body in performative work realized in sculpture, installation, video, and photography. She has shown in various exhibitions around the US, Norway, and Japan, taught in Latvia and the US, and held artist residencies at Pilchuck Glass School and in Japan. Nash is currently an Adjunct Professor at Rochester Institute of Technology. Page 4 | 2020 SAXE Emerging Artists Catalogue
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JOSHUA KERLEY Artist Statement Specialising in kiln-formed glass, my making practice is characterised by an experimental and progressive engagement with materials and process. At the heart of my practice is a desire to push the boundaries of kiln glass into new and exciting territories – I aim to reassess the traditional perceptions of glass technically, aesthetically, and materially. Utilising an extensive range of kiln-forming techniques, I produce textures, patterns, and colours that are inherently un-glass-like, and instead appear as something else entirely. My current body of work is concerned with themes of materiality and material resonance. Glass making has a rich and fertile heritage of imitating other materials; particularly those of higher value and status. Venetian glass makers were well-known for imitating semi-precious stones, metals, and porcelain. Likewise, I employ the transformative power and metamorphic capabilities of glass to emulate the physical characteristics of other materials. However, I often reference lower-value, modest materials, thereby elevating their status and challenging the orthodoxies of material hierarchy and value. With a practice that moves deftly between art, design, and craft, I make sculptural and interior objects that transcend traditional boundaries, arouse curiosity, and intrigue viewers.
Biography Joshua is a London-based artist, designer, and kiln-glass specialist, whose practice is characterized by an experimental and progressive engagement with materials and processes. Joshua received a BA Contemporary Crafts at Falmouth University and received his MA in Ceramics & Glass from the Royal College of Art in 2019. Joshua has exhibited internationally and won awards including the Gold Academic Award at Emerge 2018 and the Tiffany & Co. X Outset Studiomakers Prize. Joshua has taught at Falmouth University, City & Guilds of London Art School and currently holds the position of glass lecturer at the University for the Creative Arts, Farnham.
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NATE RICCIUTO Artist Statement Informed by an exploration into both the desire to imagine different worlds and the myriad strategies for achieving them, these works seek to uncover and reinterpret motives for operating outside of the status quo. Engaging playfully with materiality, craft, and historicity, I create objects and experimental sites that expose both the subversive qualities and escapist tendencies of fiction. I am curious about the ways that glass forms an elusive interface between ourselves and the physical environments and digital spaces that we occupy, and my recent projects consider the development of glass material and process as profound and peculiar technologies that have transformed legacies of design, architecture, and invention. Often working simultaneously with immersive installation, kinetic systems, and time-based media, I seek opportunities to contextualize glass within a broad and innovative approach to making. These situations, objects, and environments are often models for operations once performed or yet to happen, or diagrams of absurd systems implying elements of participation. Drawing on sci-fi imagery, countercultural narratives, and outsider ideologies, my work explores the potential of delusion and speculation in opening up spaces that conspicuously resist simple classification, while embracing idealistic, inclusive, radical, and flawed visions of the future.
Biography Nate Ricciuto's work envisions design, architecture, and craft as existing in the odd space between technology and fantasy. He has exhibited at the Corning Museum of Glass (Corning, NY), S12 Galleri (Bergen, Norway), and the Museum of American Glass (Millville, NJ). He holds a BFA from Ohio State University and an MFA from Tyler School of Art. Nate has been an Emerging Artist in Residence at Pilchuck Glass School and a Creative Glass Center of America Fellow. He is the Glass Program Coordinator at Columbus College of Art and Design, and a Visiting Lecturer at Ohio State University in Columbus, OH.
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2020 Jurors Maja Heuer Maja Heuer, b. 1975, is a german-born Swedish curator and art historian, specializing in glass. She has worked in different Swedish museums and founded the Swedish glass center and museum, “The Glass Factory,” which she developed while serving as the museum’s director for ten years.
Shari Mendelson Shari Mendelson is a sculptor who lives and works in Brooklyn and upstate New York. She has recieved a John Simon Memorial Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship (2017), four New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowships (1987, 1997, 2011, 2017), and a Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant (1989). She has participated in residencies including Pilchuck (2019), Yaddo (2018, 1990), The MacDowell Colony (2018), UrbanGlass (2014), Corning Museum of Glass (2015), and The Toledo Museum of Art (2017).
Ryoji Shibuya Ryoji Shibuya is currently the director of the Toyama Glass Art Museum and an advisor at Advanced Research Studies Program of Toyama City Institute of Glass Art. He has over 40 years of experience as an artist and has participated in exhibitions in Europe, America and Asia. His works are shown in museums and collectors’ homes across the globe.
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Photo Credits COVER (left to right): Gracia Nash, What Lies Beneath. Reflective glass beads, body, projection. 37” x 56” x 1/4” (Photo: Elizabeth Lamark); Nate Ricciuto, Time Machine (Mirror Travel), 2016. Front surface mirror, aluminum, kinetic components, tricycle. 60” x 96” x 35” (Photo: Morgan Gilbreath); Joshua Kerley, Sinter II. Mould fused glass. 36 x 12 x10 cm. (Photo: Guy Marshall-Brown). Page 5: Gracia Nash, Shed. Glass, silicone, body. 30” x 14” x 13” (Photo: Eric Meeker); Page 6 & 7: Gracia Nash, Like a Peach. Glass, silicone, wedding gloves, body, paper. Gloves: 13” x 5 1/2” x 2”; Book: 3 3/4” x 5” x 1/2”. (Photo: Jacob Polcyn-Evans; Installation Documentation: Elizabeth Lamark); Page 8 & 9: Gracia Nash, Lay Me Down to Rest. Reflective glass beads, silicone, body. Blanket: 36” x 72” x 1/4”. (Image/Video credit: Jacob Polcyn-Evans; Video Link: https://vimeo.com/305395839); Page 10 & 11: Gracia Nash, What Lies Beneath. Reflective glass beads, body, projection. 37” x 56” x 1/4”. (Photo: Elizabeth Lamark; Video Link: https://vimeo.com/364702251) Page 13: Joshua Kerley, Making Connections - Pink and Grey Arch. Cast glass and cork. 15 x 13 x 3cm. (Photo: Joshua Kerley); Page 14: Joshua Kerley, Fletton I. Slumped glass, London brick and rubber band. 13 x 13 x 8 cm. (Photo: Joshua Kerley); Joshua Kerley, Fletton II. Páte de verre and London Brick. 16 x 14 x 10 cm. (Photo: Joshua Kerley); Page 15: Joshua Kerley, Sinter IV. Mould fused glass. 20 x 20 x 17. (Photo: Alick Cotterill); Page 16: Joshua Kerley, Matrix III. Mould fused and slumped glass. 39 x 20 x 16 cm. (Photo: Alick Cotterill) Page 17: Joshua Kerley, Matrix IV. Mould fused glass. 29 x 27 x 3 cm. (Photo: Alick Cotterill); Page 18: Joshua Kerley, Composite Lidded Jar (large). Páte de verre and foaming cast glass. 20 x 15 x 15 cm. (Photo: Alick Cotterill); Page 19: Joshua Kerley, Composite Lidded Jar (small - group). Páte de verre and foaming cast glass. 14 x 10 x 10 cm. (Photo: Alick Cotterill) Page 21: Nate Ricciuto, Rise Over Run Again, 2017. Mirror, wood, painted carpet, lights, aluminum, mixed media. 9’ x 11’ x 8’. (Photo: Tony Walsh); Page 22: Nate Ricciuto, Time Machine, 2017. Aluminum, speed rail fittings, front surface mirror, kinetic components, motor, fluorescent lights, tricycle. 9’ x 12’ x 7’. (Photo: Tony Walsh); Page 23: Nate Ricciuto, Dome Home, 2018. Mirror, inkjet print, wood. 13” x 28” x 4”. (Photo: Artist); Page 24 & 25: Nate Ricciuto, Circuit Four: Time-Binding, 2018. Two-way mirror, wood, light, digital prints, aluminum, mixed media. 48” x 32” x 24”. (Photo: Stephen Takacs); Page 26: Nate Ricciuto, Proposal for Billy Pilgrim, 2018. Inkjet print on pegboard, glass, metal, mirror, electrical components, mixed media. 4’ x 8’ x 15. (Photo: Artist); Page 27: Nate Ricciuto, False Flame (collaboration with Lindsay Deifik), 2018. Printed and dyed textiles, fabricated steel, glass, water, light, mixed media. Dimensions variable. (Photo: Haigen Pearson; Video Link: https://vimeo.com/275887730)
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