Tim Edwards: Seeing and Knowing

P R E S T O N S I N G L E TA R Y THE AIR WORLD

TIM EDWARDS

SEEING AND KNOWING

TRAVER GALLERY

S E AT T L E

APRIL 5 - 28, 2018

TIM EDWARDS

SEEING AND KNOWING

TIM EDWARDS SEEING AND KNOWING SEPTEMBER 6-29, 2018 TRAVER GALLERY

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Traver Gallery is pleased to present Seeing and Knowing, a new exhibition by Australian glass sculptor, Tim Edwards. This exhibition, which features 13 new vessel forms, explores how the use of line can at once define, describe, and distort our perception of form in two and three-dimensional space.

A child of the 70’s and 80’s media culture, Edwards has a deep-seeded interest in how we understand, and consume images and graphics in our modern lives. He is also a passionate drawer, filling his sketchbooks with line drawings of everyday objects, patterns, and shapes. Edwards’ interest in illustration and graphics has long been at the core of his sculptural work in glass, but this most recent body of work precisely highlights how blown glass and drawing can work together to define and contort both form and our perception of it. In her recent essay Tim Edwards: Evident Paradox, Julie Ewington writes: “Does it seem paradoxical to speak of drawing in connection with glass? Yet that is, precisely, Tim Edwards’s current project: working with representation and actuality, mapped onto each other. ‘It’s about how to see things’, as he says. The current push is towards even more simplified vessels, with a maximum of two colours plus clear glass, a continuation of the ‘Line Drawing’ series from 2015 onwards.

These are simple bowl and bottle forms, the outlines marked with emphatic black lines at the outer edges and rims. Some are in rich warm colours, but Edwards says the effect is most striking when the contrasts are more marked – ‘…some colours step forward, some step back – you don’t know until you see them side by side.’ He is playing with perception/ deception... One looks both at the front of the bowl, and into it, as Edwards has cut away one face to accentuate the tension between the usual views – from the front, from above, from the side, and so on.” Ellington goes on to assert, “...Edwards gives us both the real and represented thing, simultaneously, begging the question, which is more compelling, the actuality or its drawn idea? The whole point is that it’s impossible to decide: Edwards has embedded a perceptual wobble in his vessels, what he called in 2016 ‘that tug of war between seeing and knowing’.”

Originally trained in ceramics, Edwards has devoted himself to glass art since 1997. From 1992 to 1996, he served as the Associate Designer of ceramics and glass at the Jam Factory in Adelaide, AU. In addition to Traver Gallery, Edwards’ work has been exhibited at SOFA Chicago, The Institute of Science and Arts in Venice, Italy, The Mitsukoshi International Glass Art Festival in Taiwan, and many more internationally known institutions. In 2006 Edwards was the recipient of the prestigious Rakow Commission from the Corning Museum of Glass in New York.

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Artworks, by page number: 2. Outline #10, 2018 Blown and wheel-cut glass 23 x 14 x 4 inches

15. Outline #7, 2018 Blown and wheel-cut glass 18 x 15.5 x 3.5 inches

5. Outline #5, 2018 Blown and wheel-cut glass 18.75 x 16 x 4 inches

17. Outline #3, 2018 Blown and wheel-cut glass 18 x 15.5 x 3.5 inches

7. Line Drawing #31, 2018 Blown and wheel-cut glass 23 x 13.5 x 6 inches

18. Line Drawing #32, 2018 Blown and wheel-cut glass 15.75 x 15 x 6.5 inches

8. Outline #2, 2018 Blown and wheel-cut glass 23 x 12 x 3.5 inches

21. Outline #1, 2018 Blown and wheel-cut glass 19 x 15.5 x 4 inches

10. Elements #6 Ellipse, 2018 Blown and wheel-cut glass 17 x 15.5 x 3 inches

22. Line Drawing #30, 2018 Blown and wheel-cut glass 17 x 15.5 x 6.75 inches

12. Outline #4, 2018 Blown and wheel-cut glass 21 x 14 x 4 inches

23. Line Drawing #30, 2018 Blown and wheel-cut glass 17 x 15.5 x 6.75 inches

13. Elements #1 Ellipse, 2018 Blown and wheel-cut glass 19.25 x 14.5 x 4 inches

Photography: Grant Hancock

TIM EDWARDS SEEING AND KNOWING SEPTEMBER 6-29, 2018 TRAVER GALLERY 110 UNION STREET, #200 SEATTLE, WA 98101 206.587.6501 TRAVERGALLERY.COM

TIM EDWARDS SEEING AND KNOWING SEPTEMBER 6-29, 2018 TRAVER GALLERY 110 UNION STREET, #200 SEATTLE, WA 98101 TRAVERGALLERY.COM