Emeryville, CA - Bullseye Resource Center Bay Area Gallery presents a solo exhibition of cast glass and mixed media sculpture by Cassandra Straubing. A Silent Narrative of a Forgotten America will be on view March 26 - July 20, 2019.
Cassandra Straubing re-creates artifacts and accoutrements of labor to evoke narrative and symbolic representations of the individuals whose lives are invisible to those who wield power or privilege. The garments of workers or the fruits of their labor are re-created in cast glass and arranged in poetic combinations, simultaneously telling personal stories while asking the viewer to consider the larger socio-economic systems in which we participate.
Straubing's use of glass emphasizes the complexity of the human stories she wishes to tell. The transparency of glass, when used to create human artifacts, strikes a ghostly silhouette. For Straubing, this mimics the invisibility of the communities she represents. "Glass becomes a window for the viewer to explore what might otherwise never be seen," she explains.
A Silent Narrative of a Forgotten America is Straubing's second solo exhibition at Bullseye Resource Center Bay Area Gallery, and marks a departure from her previous work in which the body is often implied but never shown. In her most recent work, Straubing includes disembodied hands engaged in labor. Although the subjects remain nameless, the scars and wrinkles are as carefully captured in glass as the warp and weft of the fabrics, telling an intimate, yet silent, story.
Cassandra Straubing’s sculptural work addresses issues of domestic, agricultural, and industrial labor within our current political climate using multiple mediums and processes, including glass and mixed media fabrication. She employs a wide range of glass-forming techniques including casting, blowing, hot-forming, and nontraditional glass processes to create her artwork. Straubing currently serves as the Glass Faculty Head and Studio Coordinator at San José State University in California, and Adjunct Faculty at California College of the Arts. She received her MFA in glass from Rochester Institute of Technology in 2007, and her BFA in studio art from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo in 2002. Straubing served as President of the Glass Art Society Board of Directors for two years. Her work has been exhibited nationally, including shows in New York, Chicago, Detroit, and Portland, Oregon.