MATRIX SERIES

BRENT KEE YOUNG

Defining Form with Line and Light / What Form? / Why?

The pieces in the Matrix Series are loosely identified in two ways:

If one was to look at my website, included are numerous formal studies that use simple and complex geometric forms as a basis for dimensional composition. These compositions are inventions in form in which exists a challenge in the learning of how to build, developing and inventing a way of thinking and a construction facility. “Cascade….” is an excellent example of this while also being informed by natural phenomena of the American Southwest.

A complimentary direction is more objects based, using recognizable everyday objects or sometimes artifacts of personal interest as a model to begin. These include the chairs, vessels, bags, ladders, etc, all objects that peak my interest and resonates somehow. “Yessir….Yessir” For example, speaks to a narrative that is endemic to the artistic mission, that is to be constantly looking, searching, for ways to communicate ideas through the glass medium. This piece explains something about myself, what interests me, and hopefully communicates these notions and resonates with the viewer. The objects depicted, often are chosen for being iconic in a familiar sense and in being everyday, what is more familiar than the “Grocery Bag”. These works asks us all to see things differently. To “Illuminate the Common” and make the ordinary extraordinary, is motive indeed.

All the sculptures are what I would consider, in the realm of defining form with line and light, something that glass does so well. However complex the structures, what is seen by the eye, are a matrix of glints of short lines, segments of light, which define each form and speak to each idea.

How?

The structure of the work is simple, yet complex, and very, very time consuming to build. All pieces from this series are flame worked borosilicate rods. They are fashioned in a way to form an organic, interconnected structure of which almost any shape might be realized. The idea came from several observations. One was an exposed root structure of a tree or plant. The other was pile of rebar building rubble from a razed building. With these images, making forms from that organic matrix was revealed. The original concept and constructions techniques were more or less developed by me.

And…

As with other bodies of work I have been involved with, interests also lie in the ambiguous nature of glass and the sense of space and volume one can create. Of course the study of how light is controlled and affects form is an utmost curiosity. These new works offer a new way of approaching inquiry into those mysteries.