Portland, OR – Bullseye Projects presents an exhibition that highlights the color-filled work of former resident-artists and collaborators. Color Block will be on view January 4 – April 1, 2017.
Portland-based artist Judy Cooke and Italian artist Maurizio Donzelli participated in residencies at Bullseye Glass Company where they translated their paintings and drawings into kilnformed glass. Both artists were drawn to the material’s myriad colors but emphasized different aspects. Cooke, well known for her combination of geometric and expressionistic abstraction, saw discarded scraps of sheet glass as ready-made blocks of color that could be arranged and joined. Split (2004), a work that typifies Cooke’s use of glass, consists of translucent and transparent sheet glass strips that are layered into a larger composition. Reminiscent of the color work of Josef Albers, the interaction between forms creates new colors and new shapes. Donzelli, on the other hand, eschewed translucency and composed with the bold palette of opaque (opalescent) glasses. In Aprire (2004), eight rectangular shapes use both color and linear perspective to simultaneously push and pull against the stark white picture plane. This playful interaction is typical of Donzelli’s drawing practice, from which many of his glass pieces originated.
When Jun Kaneko visited Bullseye Glass Company for a series of residencies and collaborations, he brought the boldly-colored and richly-patterned aesthetic of his ceramic work to kiln-glass, resulting in a monumental body of work that has been included in museum collections across the country and abroad. Tropical Shower II (2007) features bright blue, yellow, and red shapes encased, at regular intervals, inside a leaning slab of clear glass. The casting process - intricately stacked colored and clear glass melted inside a form – locks the bright primaries inside the clear. An optical effect distorts the color, creating an appearance of movement and adding to the vitality created through color and pattern.
Australian artist Richard Whiteley, through collaboration with Bullseye, was instrumental in the development of new casting techniques and colors. The exhibition features work from throughout Whiteley’s career, showing the development from early darkly-colored, organic pieces such as Green Clear Lens (2000) to Arch (2012), a monumentally-scaled yet reservedly-colored sculpture that was one of the centerpieces of a nationally touring exhibition curated by Vicki Halper: Links: Australian Glass and the Pacific Northwest.
