Interview

David Bordett (b. 1991, Shenandoah Valley, VA) is an interdisciplinary sculptor whose work critically examines American lore, half truths, and false promise, casinos and class struggle, road side attractions and exploitation, the optimism of the post war 20th century and the ideologies of control that are at work always in aesthetics. Objects and environments operate as catalysts of fantasy, creating a zone of simultaneous horror and seduction that reveals through popular cultural forms our collective desires, aspersions, and fears.

He received his BFA from the VCU Department of Sculpture and Extended Media, and MFA from the Yale Sculpture Department. For now, he maintains no permanent residence and continues to drive his 1999 Toyota Tacoma that at the time of writing shows over 330,000 miles on its odometer.

Susan Vecsey adapts the Color Field technique of pouring paint to create a personal language of abstraction, rooted in the natural world and the human experience of it. In a distinctive process that includes plein-air charcoal drawing, pastel and color studies, and multiple pours of liquefied oil on a surface of raw Belgian linen, she builds compositions in luminous tonal combinations that evoke the optical effects of sea, light, and air. Inspired by the landscapes of eastern Long Island, Vecsey’s paintings evoke not just a place, but it’s very atmosphere.

Born in New Jersey in 1971, Vecsey earned her B.A. from Barnard College and her M.F.A. from the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture, where she studied with Graham Nickson. She has had solo exhibitions at Greenville County Museum in South Carolina, John Jermain Memorial Library in Sag Harbor, Tayloe Piggott Gallery in Jackson Hole, and Berry Campbell Gallery in New York, among other venues. She lives and works in Manhattan and East Hampton, Long Island.

Diana Copperwhite (b. 1969, Ireland) lives and works in Dublin and New York. Recent solo exhibitions include Driven by Distraction, Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin (2016), Depend on the Morning Sun, Thomas Jaeckal Gallery, New York (2016) and A Million and One Things Under the Sun, Kevin Kavanagh, Dublin (2015). Selected group exhibitions include Last Picture Show w/Mary Heilmann, Chris Ofili, Danny Rolph, Vanessa Jackson, Elio Rodriguez, Jill Levine, Rebecca Smith, Thomas Jaeckel Gallery, New York (2017) and Virtú, inc. Picasso, Giacometti, Henry Moore, Elizabeth Magill and Sean Scully at the Hunt Museum, Limerick, Ireland (2017).

Copperwhite’s work is held in numerous public and private collections including: the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Arts Council of Ireland, Limerick City Gallery of Art, Office of Public Works, Contemporary Irish Art Society, Highlanes Municipal Art Gallery, Mariehamn Stadbiblioteque, Aland (Finland), Dublin Institute of Technology and The President of Ireland.

 

Bjørn Friborg is a Danish glass artist based in Denmark. Friborg challenges traditional methods of glass-making with a physically demanding approach that stretches the limits of both the material and technique.

His technique is not a means to an end but a performance, as he fearlessly punches, penetrates, manipulates, and ruptures the molten substance to achieve otherworldly and sublimely beautiful results. Friborg’s movements are a tour de force reflective of his mastery. Friborg starts each artwork by blowing a large object that is then penetrated with a mass of silver nitrate-based glass poured on top. The molten nitrate-based glass sculpts the shape, freezes, and becomes an artwork. This process is described as “A blast of energy… all that power that you channel into the material gives it the expression.” Says Friborg. “That’s what it contains, and that’s what I mean when I say that I’m just trying to find the maximum of honesty that it just has. I’m just trying to push myself to the limits. Everything is just really impulsive; all the mixes … are created at the moment. Creating something is coming closer to yourself, and getting to know yourself better. It’s like an addiction, both in terms of doing and not being able to stop doing it.”

Friborg began working in the glass industry in 1999 as as a high school drop-out. He then attended the technical school in Kosta for three years and got a job straight out of school at the Orrefors Glassworks where Kosta Boda produced all of their art glass.

Friborg received a BFA from The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts School of Architecture, Design and Conservation in 2013 after studying in Sweden at the Åfors Glasbruk, V.1 Mästare Ingvar Carlsson “Kalle Pack” and the Kosta Glass School. His work has been exhibited nationally in Denmark and the Scandinavian region and internationally.