ABSTRACTIONS OF NATURE featuring Michael Kessler - Steffen Plistermann - Doug Gillis - Redhawk Mallet
Canyon Contemporary Artist Reception
ABSTRACTIONS OF NATURE featuring Michael Kessler -
Steffen Plistermann - Doug Gillis - Redhawk Mallet
Friday, May 5th from 5-7pm join us for an evening with
contemporary artists Michael Kessler, Steffen Plistermann, Doug Gillis,
& Redhawk Mallet featuring lively artist discussions, new artworks,
live music, & cocktails by As Above, So Below Distillery.
Exhibition runs through Sunday, August 23rd.
About Michael Kessler
Michael Kessler was born in 1954 in Hanover, Pennsylvania. He received a B.F.A. degree from Kutztown University. He currently lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Michael Kessler is known for nature-based abstract paintings inspired by the vast desert landscapes of New Mexico, seascapes, and the farmlands of his native Pennsylvania. His style blends hard-edged forms with biomorphism, placing his work on a continuum between gesture and geometry. Driven by “questions of how and why nature looked the way it did,” he explains, “I wanted to peel away the surface so that I could better understand its inner workings.”
Each works consists of as many as 50 micro-thin layers of translucent and transparent acrylic. Kessler applies the paint in various ways, for instance by pulling it across the surface with an aluminum skimmer and using masking tape, sometimes bent into gently curved edges, to exclude some areas. The works are characterized by interplays between light and shadow, flatness and texture.
https://www.canyoncontemporary.com/artist/michael-kessler
About Steffen Plistermann
Steffen is largely self-taught. Born in Berlin, Germany, he moved to the US in 1987. After 25 years as an established painter and sculptor in the Pacific Northwest, he started working with glass as an assistant to Evan Schauss in 2015 while living on Maui, Hawaii. He quickly realized that glass was the next step in his artistic career and in 2017 moved to Santa Fe, NM to pursue his own work in glass full-time. In Santa Fe, he blows glass at Prairie Dog Glass, often being assisted by his wife, Manju. Steffen’s work is in private and corporate and museum collections nationwide and internationally.
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Artist's Statement
After more than 25 years as a painter and sculptor, I now find myself blowing and sculpting glass. While I never expected to work in glass, it has been the next step in a natural evolution. My fascination with organic colors, textures and shapes has finally found the perfect outlet and my past experiences allow me to create work that transcends my new medium. In my past career, I realized early on that, in order to arrive at an organic result, I must go through an organic process. I found glass to be the ideal material for this approach. Between heat, gravity, and
centrifugal force, glass takes on a life of its own and as the artist, I end up
collaborating with the material, rather than trying to dictate an outcome. When I am working with glass, I am approaching color from a painter’s viewpoint.
However, colored glass does not blend and mix in the way that oils or acrylics do. Through a lot of experimentation, I developed a process based on colored glass that has been ground to a powder size. Layering these powders and heating and cooling them in specific ways allows me to create these unique, distinctive finishes. I frequently don’t know what the final shape of the piece will be until all
the color patterns have been established; only then can I see the corresponding shape. As a result, all my pieces are originals in the truest form of the term, there is no way to copy what I have done before.
All of my work continues to evolve, and I find that as I progress as a glassblower, I’m able to incorporate more and more techniques from my experience as a painter and sculptor. This is also why I foremost think of myself not as a glassblower, but as an artist currently working in glass.
Most of my pieces begin in the same way. After gathering one or more layers of clear glass, I apply several layers of colored glass. This will eventually become the inside color. I’ll add one more gather of clear glass and then start working on the outside colors, predominantly using colored glass ground to a powder size, which makes for very thin layers. Additional color might be applied in the form of wraps or through the insertion of prefabricated, multi-colored medallions. On average, there are between 15 to 20 layers of colors on the outside of my pieces. After the pieces have cooled down, I’ll sandblast the outside, which creates a matt finish and exposes the textures created by the color application to the touch. As a result, the outside of my pieces feels more like stone.
https://www.canyoncontemporary.com/artist/steffen-plistermann
About Doug Gillis
Doug Gillis creates kiln-worked sculptural glass wall art by pushing the limits of the fusing process. Integrating unique materials such as metals and cottonwood leaves into his glass works, Doug achieves surprising effects. His works are ever-varied as he explores themes such as the visualization of Zen, Time, circadian rhythm, color variations and undulations of abstracted mess.
Recently Doug has begun to explore concepts around the connection to heritage fabrics by creating glass artworks based off of quilting patterns. Doug's creations are delightful in their variety. Expressions of form, music, language, nature, design and Zen, are inherent in his body of work. His individual works can often stand alone, and yet can be strung together in endless combinations to create bigger artistic statements while fulfilling a desire to design a space. The glass is often pleasantly reflective and can add luster to any room, while integrating effortlessly with other works of art.
https://www.canyoncontemporary.com/artist/doug-gillis
About Redhawk Mallet
"Stone Creations" by Marlys Mallet and Michael Redhawk
The idea for these "Stone Creations" came as a result of Michael's affiliation with gemstones as a jewlery designer and Marlys's natural attraction to the abstract patterns found in so many mineral specimens. The final result of their collaboration is a new genre of unique, three-dimensional works of art which present collectable quality stones in an elevated and artistic format -- an exciting expansion from their "Unison" series.
At an international gem show in the summer of 2015, while on a quest to purchase smaller opal gemstones, the couple came across two rather spectacular agate specimens. Although the stones were too large to be used in jewelry, they purchased them anyway.
For over two months the stones were set aside and unused until one morning, on their deck, while polishing off a thermos of coffee, a creative spark was lit and and the artists began to develop a plan. Excitement ran rampant as they began to approach problems, discuss solutions and ultimately come to the idea for a final presentation. Both were anxious to get right ot work to bring their idea to life. Driven by their "creative spirit," their first mixed-media paintings began to take shape within two weeks.
As each work evolved, the artists developed new techniques. Marlys found ways to reproduce the druzy pockets and gold deposits of the specimens in acrylic painting mediums. She positioned the stones and painted an environment for them, inspired by them. Michael became the engineer behind the project, developing a way to securely mount the stones of ever-increasing size, and preparing the final finish. Once completed, he even gets to use some of his favorite tools: the miter saw and the power drill.
The artists are now on a quest to find better and better collectable mineral specimens, searching the world, connecting with miners and importers, as well as discovering unique polished slices of petrified wood from as close as Arizona, and from as far as Madagascar. Selecting the stones and imagining the compositions for their future works is a joint endeavor enjoyed by both artists.
https://www.canyoncontemporary.com/artist/redhawk-mallet