Heike Brachlow, Theme and Variation XXXIV, 2012
cast glass, 7 x 4.75 x 4.25 inches (installed)
Portland, OR - Bullseye Gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition of new kilnformed work by German artist Heike Brachlow. Six Impossible Things will be on view September 5 – October 27, 2012.
In past exhibitions, Brachlow has been a provocateur, asking viewers to touch and play with massive, precarious-seeming works of kilncast glass. Six Impossible Things, the artist’s first solo exhibition at Bullseye Gallery, continues this provocation. Taking the title from Lewis Carrol’s Through the Looking Glass, Brachlow presents a series of sculptures that balance on a single point or nestle together in a variety of orientations. Brachlow’s glass works require carefully considered form. When combined with a researched understanding of volumetric color, the sculptures appear impossibly weightless. “The focus of my work,” Brachlow explains, “is transformation achieved through different means.” Transformation occurs through the color shift properties of the glass she uses, the saturation of color specific to form, and also through direct manipulation by the viewer.
Born and raised in Munich, Germany, Brachlow began working with glass in Rotorua, New Zealand as an apprentice in a small studio. She received her BA in 2004 from University of Wolverhampton and her MA (2006) and PhD (2012) from the Royal College of Art in London. Brachlow’s work has been exhibited throughout the UK, as well as in Japan, New Zealand, Estonia and the US. Her work can be found in the collections of the European Museum of Modern Glass, Rodental, Germany and Glasmuseum Hentrich, Dusseldorf, Germany. Brachlow draws her inspiration from travel, human interaction, architecture and geometry. Heike Brachlow is currently a lecturer at Havering College in the UK.
