Glass Sculpture
My glass drawings sculptures are a considered arrangement of marks on glass. Through this arrangement, the sculpture generates the ability to invent random drawing possibilities within the reflected glass and becomes autonomous. Unpredictable patterns and properties emerge as the observer moves around it. Although the initial placement of marks and shapes on the glass are instigated with deliberate intent, the final outcome of marks and shapes through a reflective process is, to a great degree, out of my control.
In a sense, this sculpture resembles some form of computer, incorporating layers of information to create a random lineal and tonal visual language. There is a sense of permanence in its engineered structure and at the same time, a transience in what is captured within the structure's reflections.
This process brings me to consider Paul Cézanne's painting and drawing approaches. He abandons the deep spatial qualities of traditional painting and explores ideas of the flatness of the colour effect on the painted surface, which in turn neutralises the subject matter of the painting and brings to the viewer's attention the sensations that Cézanne experiences in the moment of observing the subject.1 To experience such feelings through Cézanne's art reminds the viewer that the world we live in, through light and colour, is ephemeral, always reinventing itself, provoking new emotions.
In a letter written to his son, Cézanne theorises that we optically perceive things as units of colour varying in light and dark shades. There are no lines in what we see. What we see is colour against colour, and therefore colours flow into each other as if in an extended plane.2 In another letter to Emile Bernard, he also writes, "in objects, there is a culminating point and this point is always in spite of tremendous effect; light and shade; colour sensations – the closest to the eye. The edges of the objects flee towards the centre of our horizon."3 By using this logic, Cézanne begins to deconstruct the obvious pictorial elements and reconstruct them in his own visual language.
1 Karmel P. Lesson of the Master: Cézanne and Cubism. page 186 – note 18, Cézanne and the Dawn of Modern Art. Reference to Clement Greenberg "Toward a New Laocoon" published in Partisan Review 1940.
2 Cantz H. Paul Cézanne and the Dawn of Modern Art page 184 – note 8, extracts from P.M. Moran, edition Conversation with Cézanne (Paris 1978) Reference to Leo Larguier "Cézanne parle," in Le Dimanche avec Cézanne: souvenirs (Paris 1925).
3 Rewald J. Paul Cézanne Letters page 305. Letter to Emile Bernard