Portland, OR – Bullseye Projects presents a group exhibition that draws inspiration from the dynamic relationship between the architectures of the body and the spaces we inhabit. Embodied Architecture will be on view July 12 – October 28.
The elements of architecture are not visual units or gestalt; they are encounters, confrontations that interact with memory. – Juhani Pallasmaa
Finnish architect Juhani Pallasmaa describes architecture as having a multiplicity of existences that are in tension, lending the buildings and spaces we inhabit a utilitarian aspect and a poetic aspect. For Pallasmaa, architecture exists in relation to our perception and embodied experience. It is a mediator, connecting us to the world outside our bodies and to time, both past and future. The artists featured in Embodied Architecture create works that focus on these physical and emotional relationships through connections between the body, nature, and the spaces or objects we construct.
Nisha Bansil’s series Glass Origami is based on folding techniques developed by astrophysicist Koryo Miura. These techniques use a repeating set of folds to create intricate faceted forms. The folding technique is intimate and uncomplicated, yet it can be found in everything from deployable solar panels on satellites to naturally occurring forms. By translating the folded paper into glass using pâte de verre, Bansil arrests the fluidity of the folds while heightening the tactility of the construction. Karlyn Sutherland, a Scotland-based architectural designer and artist, has centered her practice on, “…the relationships formed between person and place.” In a recent body of work, Sutherland re-creates spaces that are personally important. Sutherland distills each space into simplified perspectival outlines, emphasizing the spaces themselves and how we relate to them. “My practice explores this dialogue, with particular focus on the qualities of space that inform our memories and sense of attachment to place.” Jeff Wallin combines observational drawing with kiln-glass. Wallin draws the human figure and architectural spaces separately using powdered glass, then fuses, cuts, and rearranges the individual elements. This process results in a commingling of the figurative and architectural elements.
Nisha Bansil received a BFA in Printmaking from the State University of New York, New Paltz in 2001. In 2011, she was an artist-in-residence, along with Dan Mirer, at the Corning Museum of Glass. In 2016, Bansil was an artist-in-residence at the Bullseye Resource Center New York. She lives and works in New York.
Karlyn Sutherland studied architecture at Edinburgh College of Art and received a PhD from The University of Edinburgh, where she was later employed as a design tutor and research assistant. She began working in glass in 2009 when her research into topics of place and attachment led her home to Caithness, where she enrolled in a master class at North Lands Creative Glass. She has since gone on to exhibit her work nationally and internationally. In 2016, she was an Endeavor Research Fellow in the Glass Workshop of the Australian National University in Canberra. Sutherland was an artist-in-residence at Bullseye Studio in Portland, Oregon and at the Corning Museum of Glass in New York. Sutherland lives and works as an artist, architectural designer, and writer in her hometown of Lybster, Scotland.
Jeff Wallin has spent his life in the Pacific Northwest. He studied under Professor Keiko Hara at Whitman College, graduating in 1995 with a BA in studio art. Since moving to Portland, Wallin has continued to pursue drawing and painting at The Drawing Studio with Philip Sylvester and more recently at Hipbone Studio with Jeff Burke. His introduction to glass came in 1999 at Ray Ahlgren's Fireart Glass, where he continues to work.
