Portland, OR - Bullseye Projects presents two concurrent group exhibitions highlighting both emerging and mid-career artists. Emerge 2018 is a showcase of work by the finalists from Bullseye Glass Company's biennial juried kiln-glass competition. Evolve 2018 highlights new work by former Emerge finalists. Both exhibitions will be on view at Bullseye Projects from June 23 - September 8, 2018.
Bullseye Glass Company recognizes the efforts of students, early-career artists, and established artists who are exploring kiln-glass for the first time through the biennial Emerge competition. Finalists in this year's competition were selected from 280 entries, representing 29 countries, and were evaluated by a panel of three jurors based on their creativity, craftsmanship, and design. The 2018 jurors are: Heidi Schwegler, Artist and Chair, MFA Applied Craft + Design, a collaborative program between the Oregon College of Art and Craft and the Pacific Northwest College of Art; Diane Wright, Curator of Glass, Toledo Museum of Art; and Benedict Heywood, Executive Director, Bellevue Arts Museum. From these finalists, the jury will select seven award winners whose work will be included in a national touring exhibition.
Evolve features the work of three former Emerge finalists and award winners who have continued to push the boundaries of their studio practice, conceptually, technically, and aesthetically. Artists Joanna Manousis, Cassandra Straubing, and Kathryn Wightman all incorporate domestic and symbolically charged objects in their work, transforming them to create unexpected juxtapositions or to emphasize the relationships we share. Joanna Manousis, a finalist in Emerge 2010, constructs her work around culturally charged objects. Selene [2017], is comprised of 42 glass segments configured in a pattern similar to that of rose windows found in cathedrals. Selene, the greek goddess of the moon, is represented through the shifting opacity of the opaline glass. By inverting the rose window form and conflating tradition, Manousis aims to spark an extended dialogue. Emerge 2010 Kilncaster Award winner Cassandra Straubing is known for her cast glass and found object sculptures that tell the stories of forgotten and marginalized people. She casts common domestic objects in glass, giving them the ethereal, ghostly quality of a memory. In her recent body of work, Straubing combines the objects with disembodied hands that grasp, hold, or support the found or glass object in nurturing gestures. Kathryn Wightman won the Emerge 2014 Gold Award for Posy [2014], a piece that represented years of research into screen printed images on glass. Using screen printed glass powders to reference the textures of fabric, Wightman re-creates vintage domestic patterns. The patterns are disrupted or decayed, chronicling the effects of human activity on the objects we live with.
Award-winning work from Emerge 2018 and selected pieces from Evolve 2018 will be included in an exhibition that will travel to Bullseye Resource Center Bay Area, Emeryville, California; Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia; and Bellevue Arts Museum, Washington.
