Mel Archer
Broken Glass: Re-imagined
January 11 – February 19, 2022
Corrine Woodman Gallerie
Artist Talk, Thursday, January 20, 12 pm
Planned for In person
Where: CORRINE WOODMAN GALLERIES, The Arts Center (700 SW Madison Ave, Corvallis)
Hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 12-5 pm.
In “Broken Glass: Re-imagined”, Mel Archer shows “glass paintings”, created by fusing glass in multiple layers.
For many years Mel Archer created work in glass. What, for most of us, is a casualty – broken glass – is a source of material for Archer.
Artwork made with colored glass quite often has a graphic quality, while Archer has re-interpreted broken glass into a painterly style, in a relatively large size for this kind of work.
“ I find the world a beautiful place with pattern and texture and collusions of color all around and I want to recreate that beauty for others to appreciate through my work.”
Mel Archer
Archer creates imagery on glass by fusing smaller bits and pieces of glass to a background. To create the nuances of color in his work, Archer uses a variety of different size: from small shards, “frit” that can be powder, granular pieces, or narrow rods of glass broken into small pieces.The effect resembles a painting with soft gradations as we see in watercolors. The transparent and reflective nature of glass gives the work an extra brilliance.
Painting is often described as being about light, and that element comes across even stronger when an artwork is made from translucent and/or reflective glass.