Portland, OR - A palimpsest is an object that embodies it’s own history, a visual instance of written language through time. Jeffrey Sarmiento’s work uses words and images embedded in glass, frozen as sculptural objects that exist in the present but whisper of the past. Like insects in amber, meaning is trapped in form. Layers of memory become concrete but transparent, a history made physical.
“My work uses a complex ethnicity to drive new visual expression,” says Sarmiento. “All aspects of language, both literal and abstract, are sources for pattern, image, form and composition. My goal is to take language and to translate it into visual communication, that is, to make art.”
Sarmiento, a Chicago native, received the Research Councils UK Academic Fellowship in Glass for 2006-2011. His work has been exhibited across the US and in Denmark. He has also received fellowships from UrbanGlass (Brooklyn, NY), the Creative Glass Center of America (Millville, NJ), and the Fulbright Fellowship to Denmark. His work is included in the collections of the Glasmuseet Ebeltoft (Denmark), the Museum of American Glass (Millville, NJ), and the Rhode Island School of Design Artist Book Collection (Providence, RI).
Download: Jeffrey Sarmiento April 4, 2006
