607.259.1008
Exhibit A
  • Home
  • Artists
  • Upcoming
  • Past
  • About

Millions of Marks and a Few Words with Anne Muntges

7/17/2015

1 Comment

 
Tethered (L) by Anne Muntges
Tethered (R) by Anne Muntges

REFIGURED at Exhibit A features the work of eight artists using the figurative imagery. One artist, Anne Muntges of Buffalo, NY, is known primarily for architectural imagery and her mark making.  I asked Anne about both, and here is what she had to say.

Ann W.
Your artworks in REFIGURED feature stiffly posed bodies that are both headless and seemingly hollow. Explain a little bit about what ideas you are putting forth by using this imagery?

Anne M.
One of the overarching themes of my work has been an exploration of architectural space. I often focus on the home, or home-like spaces because they are areas I have the most access to in my life. I very rarely put human figures in the spaces because I was more interested in the artifacts of an occupied home rather than the actual occupants. 

A little more than a year ago I started to imagine what it might be like to occupy the spaces of one of my drawings. Exploring this lead my down a path to where I discovered beautiful victorian era portrait cards at a flea market. The people in the images were far too regal to ever live in one of my drawn homes, but the images struck me. The figures were so stiff and almost sculpture like. I started to toy with this idea of the figures becoming the homes I had been drawing. Their clothing the exteriors of my spaces with their torsos or legs opened up with windows or doors. The figures would still interact with each other as they had in the portraits but their identifying features would be removed. 

It was exciting to play with. By making the figures less human there seemed to be more possibilities to play with blending architectural features into their bodies. 


Anne Muntges
detail of 'Oxford, NY' by Anne Muntges
Picture
'Oxford, NY' by Anne Muntges, 60 x 48"
Ann W.
You seem propelled through your work, both in a broad sense, and likely, moment to moment by a sort of meditative contemplation, a dreamlike way of considering everyday things. Would you say that ’s the case? How does the repetitive nature of your mark making feed into how you contemplate ideas and develop subject matter? 

Anne M.
Its kind of funny, until recently I had not really thought about my mark making too intensely. It was just a natural extension of myself. I suppose it it quite meditative. I know that I am at my happiest when I am working through a drawing. Each mark is building form and the more I make the more alive the image becomes. I get actively excited for each strike of my pen as I go forward in my work. 

Drawing time is also definitely filled with daydreams. Sometimes I find myself imagining I am the thing I am drawing and trying to figure out how the lines would best build me. Those moments can be as mundane as thinking about how to bring an arm forward or as odd as trying to resolve how best to fit a door into my chest. When I get to the point of thinking about how to fit architecture into the form it of course leads me to question if the door should be a window and if the window should show something. That usually means there has to be more drawings until I figure out exactly the right architecture to accentuate a torso or thigh... 

I am inspired by my drawing process and I definitely do use it as time to think about new work. It is not always a logical leap but being in process does always lead to new work. 

(detail) Skewed Perspectives by Anne Muntges
Installation by Anne Muntges
'Skewed Perspectives' by Anne Muntges

Ann W.
You currently have an impressive installation on view through August 9th, at Big Orbit (Buffalo, NY) titled Skewed Perspectives. It’s 75 feet of objects and decor that you have marked.  I believe you spent 2 years creating it. So what’s next?

Anne M.
This might be the hardest question yet! I'll try to hide the onset of panic about evaluating the future...

I am hoping to get Skewed Perspectives to more venues. I also have a show scheduled with the Buffalo Arts Studio in January where I am working another large installation of drawing objects. A similar style to what I did for this work, but different outcome and not structured like a home.

Other than that I am participating in a few projects. There is the Community Supported Art (CSA) series through CEPA Gallery, for which I am making a new lithographic print. I am also doing a national print exchange organized by a friend and Colleague, Jonathan Barcan in San Francisco and in September I'll be at the Ox-Bow residency in Michigan. 

I am staying busy and though nothing is concrete in the next few months except for the Big Orbit Show I am confident and excited about it moving around and taking me on new adventures!


Ann W.
I'm excited about your next adventures too whatever they may be! I always love to seeing what you are up to. Thank you so much for talking with me about your work.

Anne M.
Thank you.


LINKS:
  • AnneMuntges.com
  • REFIGURED at Exhibit A
  • Skewed Perspectives at Big Orbit

Post Script:
Be assured I will also be speaking to artists not named Ann(e) so stay tune
1 Comment

Molten Glass, Wet Paper and a Conversation with Anne Gant

5/12/2015

1 Comment

 
Picture
I became acquainted with artist Anne Gant and her work in 2007 when she exhibited at 171 Cedar Arts Center's Houghton Gallery. I was coordinating the exhibition program there at the time. After opening my own gallery, Exhibit A, she was one of the first artists I added to the roster. It's been a pleasure watching Anne explore and refine the images she creates by pressing molten hot glass into wet rag paper.  

Treasured: New Fire Glass Drawings by Anne Gant is currently on view at Exhibit A and runs through May 28. 


Anne Gant graciously agreed to answer some questions about her work. 

Ann W.
It is unexpected to find a someone using glass making techniques to produce artwork with no glass in it. Can you talk a little bit about how you first came up with the idea to press molten hot glass into wet paper?

Anne G.
It evolved from a glassblowing process, from one of my favorite techniques.  You can "touch" the glass if you make a pad of wet newspaper and sort of cradle the glass in it, like using a catcher's mitt. It's a great way to get close to the glass without getting burned. When I was doing my Master's in glassblowing, I was keeping these newspaper pads at the end of each glassblowing session, because they were like a record of the day's work. And they had interesting burns on them. From that, I started trying to burn paper more strategically.  It took some time to get from there to here, but eventually I came to this process of burning paper. 


Anne Gant demonstration at Corning Museum of Glass
Anne Gant doing demonstration opening weekend, in the

new hot glass amphitheater at Corning Museum of Glass.

Ann W.
‘…getting close to the glass without getting burned.’ sounds as if you like the danger of it. Or if 'not the danger, what is it about the molten state of glass that inspires you?

Anne G.
Before I blew glass, I was doing metal sculpture. I like working with heat and fast processes. But what I really loved about glass was the way it is so difficult to control and dynamic in its molten state, and so beautiful! It was fascinating and mesmerizing. And a lot of these characteristics are actually lost when it cools down- it goes from being hot and responsive to cold and hard. I wanted to find a way to capture that action and excitement that the glassblower sees and feels, but that is often lost in the final glass form. 

Anne Gant creating a 'fire glass drawing'
Ann W.
Can you discuss the imagery that you produce on the paper?

Anne G.
The basis of the imagery is traditional glass forms- bowls and cups and goblets, chandelier pieces and shapes like that, because those are the shapes that I make in glass. What I like about the burned drawings is that they seem to capture a lot of the volume of the glass and even sometimes look like they have highlights and shadows. So I like to draw things that also have a lot of sparkle, that refer to ornate glass forms themselves- in the past I've done chandeliers and giant piles of glass objects. In this show, I choose necklaces and jewelry. I also like the idea of depicting fancy things with just burned paper.

Small Necklace by Anne Gant
Small Necklace by Anne Gant

Paper burned by glass

Ann W.
Yes. I have always enjoyed that you manage to make singe marks look twinkly! And your work does examine ideas about how we value things; what are the properties of materials and objects that make them precious to us. One could even argue that the most desirable things are the things that cannot be possessed because they are gone. That being said, a lot of visitors to the gallery ask what happens to the glass that is used to make your work and they seem sad that it is gone, but it is sort of poetic don’t you think?

Anne G.
I think most people yearn to see the glass, but that is actually part of the emotional experience of the artwork- this feeling of seeing the beautiful "ruin" and having a sense of nostalgia, you could say, for the thing that is missing. You imagine what it used to be, that's good! It's all working in the brain, there is a conversation going on. I am very moved when I see ruins, and I enjoy this vacillation between seeing the ruin in front of me, and imagining the original unblemished form. I think that within the present state of a ruin, there exists this link to past perfection, and the two of them really dance in my mind, so the ruin itself captures the passage of between what was, and what is. This sort of vibration between the actual thing and the past object is what is at play in these works.


Artist Anne Gant

What I am also trying to do, is open up the vocabulary of glass- to show that it can also be a tool for expressive mark-making, and we can describe other aspects of the wonderful characteristics of glass throughout its dynamic states. It can be other things as well as a solid end product of the process. In doing this investigation, I am also sending this question out to my fellow glassmakers, what else can we do with this amazing material? How else can it be used? And by using it in this way, I hope I am bringing another point of view to the dialogue of studio glass practice. I'd like to think that if someone is serious about collecting a wide range of modern glass, they would want to include one of these drawings in their collection.

Ann W.
Opening up the vocabulary of glass and what it is and what it can do. That sort of brings us full circle back to the work being unexpected. And amazing! Thanks so much for taking the time to answer some questions.

Anne G.
Thank You!




LINKS:

  • See artwork included in TREASURED: New Fire Glass Drawing by Anne Gant at Exhibit A.
  • See a 2012 video of Anne Gant doing at Corning Museum of Glass. Anne works alone but for this event she works with Corning's talented gaffers and created a dragon in honor of Chinese New Year.
  • Visit Anne Gant's site.
1 Comment
    Picture

    Author

    Ann Welles is the director of Exhibit A, a contemporary art gallery in Corning, New York.

    Archives

    July 2015
    May 2015

    Categories

    All
    Anne Gant
    Artist
    Fire Glass Drawing
    Glass
    Paper

    RSS Feed

INFO
Contact Us
Schedule of Events
Info for Visual Artists
ARTISTS
Robin Cass
​David Dowler
Anne Gant
Robert Glisson
​Ronald Gonzalez
Amy Greenan
Samuel Guy
Jennifer Halvorson​
Jeremy Holmes
​Bethany Krull
Dan Mirer
James Paulsen
Angus Powers
​Michael Rogers
​
Shasti O'Leary Soudant
Debb VanDelinder
​Robin Whiteman
Tricia Wright
Melissa Zarem
Exhibit A
Experience Contemporary Art
EXHIBIT A, 607-259-1008