Head In The Clouds
Mesa Arts Museum presents Head in The Clouds, a two person collaborative solo exhibition of narrative driven sculptural glass created by Jennifer Caldwell and Jason Chakravarty. The exhibition, on display January 15-April 3, 2022, features two site specific installations and a handful of sculptures. The new work being featured encompasses the overshadowing cognitive weight felt during the pandemic.
Since 2012, Jennifer Caldwell and Jason Chakravarty have maintained a critical, conceptual, and technical dialogue about their individual work, which easily evolved to collaborative pieces. They have mounted multiple two-person exhibitions which included work that challenges the experimental process specific to each of them. Within these compositions, Caldwell showcases her mastery of the flame worked process, while Chakravarty contributes the cast and blown glass elements. Caldwell utilizes a lot of sea life imagery, while Chakravarty captures what man uses to access the sea (i.e. Man and Nature in Nature). The finished compositions have been featured in various glass magazines and generously collected. Caldwell creates work that draws inspiration from her environment. Born and raised in California, she began working with glass in 2000, while living in Hawaii. Caldwell now lives and works in Kingston, Washington, where the Pacific Ocean continues to influence her work.“Although my inspiration comes from the ocean, I am most intrigued by capturing movement. I try to emulate the movement of sea life in a simple contemporary form,” says Caldwell in her personal statement.Chakravarty began incorporating glass through the use of neon into his sculpture in 1998, while attending Arizona State University. He was employed for four years at a commercial neon sign shop where he learned technical fundamentals of the neon process. In 2002, he began illuminating hot shop forms and kiln casting glass while attending graduate school at California State University Fullerton. Thematically, much of the work is drawn from the artists’ travel experiences, teaching, exhibiting, and demonstrating glass. Road trips across the US and visits to Japan, Cuba, Honduras,Turkey and Israel have sprung various series of work that are inspired by the objects, places, and people they have met on their journeys. Wooden docks in Honduras, sunsets in the southwest, and forest lakes in upstate New York have crept their way into many of the pieces. Objects ranging from antique scuba diver helmets to barnacle covered buoys serve as points of departure inviting viewers to explore their own personal connections to the familiar forms we encounter in unfamiliar places.
Special Thanks to: The Mesa Arts Museum Team notably Judy Dahms-Brouillard, Tiffany Fairall, Frank Gonzales, Laura Jacobson, and Colette Pecenka. Lacey Dollahite and Gaffer Glass, Larry Graham and Graham's Neon, John Longo and SW Art Glass, Russell Youngs and Blue Media. Thank you all for your support, time and resources with this exhibition.
View additional works at:
Make.Believe.
2020-21
Cast glass, aluminum
(1000 cranes installed onto 6 clouds)
Shelter From The Storm
2021
Flameworked, fused, slumped, and ladle cast glass,
23 x 16 x 16”
Intuitive Percipitation
2021
Argon tubing, sculpted and sandblasted glass,
Forget Me Not
2021
Flameworked, cast, patte d’verre, and sandblasted
glass,
12 x 14 x 16”
Beecome Connected
2021
Cast, flameworked, sandblasted glass,
16 x 10 x 8”
Beecoming
2021
Cast, flameworked, and sandblasted glass
16 x 10 x 8”
Wishful Thinking
2021
Mold blown and hand sculpted glass, and found objects
22 x 9 x 9”
The Need For Rest
2022
cast and flameworked glass
17 x 5 x 5”
White Bred
2020
Cast and sandblasted glass
4"x 4" (25 total pieces)
Vocalizing
2019
Cast and flameworked glass
11 x 9 x 6”
Half Empty
2018
Cast, flameworked, and sandblasted glass
12 x 12 x 2”
Poised Serenity
2020
Cast, flameworked, and sandblasted glass
12 x 12 x 2”
Southern Comfort
2020
Blown and flameworked glass
16 x 10 x 10”
Paper Silhouettes Being Pulled Into The Sea
2019
Cast, flameworked, and sandblasted glass
18 x 18 x 2”