Photograph and
copyright Manfredi Bellati
Venice Palazzo Loredan: Within Light
/ Inside Glass Exhibition. In occasion of the International Year of Light, until
April 19th, in Palazzo Loredan, one of the most beautiful spaces in Venice, the exhibition Within Light /Inside Glass curated by Rosa Barovier Mentasti and
Francesca Giubilei. In collaboration
with the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, Light, glass and their
interaction from an artistic and scientific point of view are the theme of the
exhibition conceived and promoted by Vicarte, the research unit “Glass and
Ceramics for the Arts” based in the campus of the Faculty of Sciences and
Technology of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa.
Fifteen international artists were
invited to develop works on the theme of glass and light for the rooms of the
palazzo.
Above. Enrico Tommaso De Paris /
Italy – Chromosoma # 010605 - 2005. As a multi-media artist he uses the most
expressive language from painting to installation, from video to digital
images. His works have their roots both in science and in philosophy. His
installations, quite often site-specific, transform the space in which they are
exhibited into a place of reflection on contemporaneity: the macro and microscopic
reality become represented like our DNA, like the atoms from the time of
Democritus that represent the elements composing any material. Everything
arrives in a mixture of light and sound, glass, plastics and steel.
Photograph and
copyright Manfredi Bellati
Within Light / Inside Glass. Anna-Lea
Kopperi / Finland – Room of Angels (installation of recycled mirrors) – 2015. Anna-Lea
Kopperi is a conceptual artist known because for her interactive and
environmental works, installations and public sculptures, which lead us to
consider the environmental, architectural and social aspects of the places in
which they become situated. Her ephemeral and site-specific projects use
subjective perceptions in order to pose existential questions. She often employs
mirror fragments set in very specific ways to reflect the surroundings and
refract light creating a surreal, spiritually evocative atmosphere.
Photograph and
copyright Manfredi Bellati
Within Light / Inside Glass.
Silvano Rubino / Italy – Sensitive
Light in Sensitive Form – 2014 – solid ground, carved and sanded glass. Rubino’s
artistic activity includes photography, video and sculpture. His interest is focused on the activation of space and the relationship between the
environment and the viewer, between the work and the public; quite often
returning to form studies, studies of light and equally to the exploration of
words. The material he usually uses for his sculptural works is glass, worked
by the skilful hands of the Murano artisans, is deprived of most of its
traditional qualities (luminosity and transparency) and acquires a more
ambiguous, deceptive nature.
Photograph and
copyright Manfredi Bellati
Within Light / Inside Glass. Animating
the spaces of Istituto Veneto with interesting experimentations, the works
presented speak to the interaction between light and glass from both a formal
and conceptual point of view. Using neon or natural light, borosilicate glass
for micro or macro sculptures, old Murano techniques or new technologies,
photography, painting and drawing, transparency and luminescence.
Above. Co-curator with Rosa Barovier
Mentasti, Francesca Giubilei and Taddeo Zuccheri president of Vitraria.
Within Light / Inside Glass. Alan
Jaras / Great Britain – Refractograph S190 – 8 – 2012 – lensless photography.
Jaras is a scientist and an artist
who after leaving his career as industrial researcher and microscopist has
directed his energy to the study and relation between art and science. He
transforms light into art works. His works are classical photographs of
lightbeams passing through sheet glass with varying surface attributes at
differing angles. Multi-coloured images
result from this process, recalling the depths of the sea or far away galaxies.
Within Light / Inside Glass. Elisabeth Scherffig / Germany – Giest und Sinn – 2012 – pastel on Arches Paper. Her artistic research revolves around the concept of space. The primary technique is drawing, very detailed and able to show us surfaces in the smallest details, perceivable as the intimate structure of things. Over the last years she has devoted herself to the observation and photography of heterogeneous glass surfaces, which she converts into pastel drawings on paper. This project connected with glass is a study, through drawing, of vision and light.
Within Light / Inside Glass. Teresa
Almeida / Portugal. Almeida is a young artist and designer
interested in exploring the link between art and technology. She is currently
working with luminescent glass, reconstituting aestheticforms whose point of
departure is environmental destruction. Her main interests aretechnology,
handicrafts, ecology, sustainability and design for empowerment and social
innovation.
Within Light / Inside Glass. Eric
Michel / France – Naissance d’un Photon – 2012 – neon. Infini – 2012 –
neon. Michel is a multi-media artist who
works mainly with light and color. His lightworks are essentially based in
research on the immaterial. Light plays a very important role and is the
vehicle for conveying his sensitivity. Its both wave and particle nature,
material and immaterial, effects transportation from the real to the imaginary.
Within Light / Inside Glass. Robert Wiley / USA – Questioning the
Answers – 2015 – Flames worked glass, mirror. Point of Reference #8.1.3. –
2015. Robert Wiley’s research is
currently focused on study of the nature of creativity, and points of approach
and divergence between art and science. Understanding the deeper mechanisms of
creative thought (artistic and scientific) is the most important element of his
work, he often works in glass, in which the material acquires a symbolic role. His
artistic practice emerges from exercise and meditation, leading him to create works
that span the gap between analytical thought and poetry.
Within Light / Inside Glass. Mika Aoki / Japan – Forest – 2014 –
flamed worked glass. Aoki works mainly
with glass. Her works represent spores, microorganisms, mould, natural forms,
and biological systems scattered over the most diverse environments that become
animated in the presence of light. Her research is somewhere between science,
art and fantasy. Her transparent and delicate works seem to disappear in the dark
and become visible only with light.