“Material Evidence” Mixed media work of Peter Boyer, and Master Plasma sculptor Ed Kirshner

Closing Party March 15th 2008, 6-9pm

Closing night will showcase a live performance by Oakland reed renegade Cornelius Boots

 

Enter a world were materials come alive in an inspiring array of elements, both elegant and serene these masters of design transform materials designed for constructing buildings, into creations that seem to take on a life of their own.

Included in the display are the compellation plasma jellyfish sculptures by Ed Kirshner and Bernd Weinmayer, a master flame worker from Austria.  www.weinmayer.at

Peter Boyer

Boyer's art deals with physical and material elements. He builds paintings by successive applications and deletions of various materials: canvas, muslin, linen, paint, gesso, charcoal and graphite. His is a process of working and reworking the surface by tearing off and reapplying his materials until the work attains what he has described as "presence".

Peter Boyer was born in New York in 1948, moving to the West Coast with his family in 1960. He studied art in California and Oregon, receiving his BA from San Francisco State University in 1977. He also studied architecture at The Southern California Institute of Architecture. Boyer operated a small design/build business in the 1970's, which acquainted him with the materials and techniques of building construction. Much of this knowledge has been applied to the process he follows in creating his mixed media works. www.peterboyer.com

Ed Kirshner

Artist statement:

Like Dr. Frankenstein in his lab, I hover over my glass and gas plasma work, spending many hours mixing, balancing and fine-tuning. Still, the plasma light behaves in a way that I can never completely control. I can change or direct its behavior by varying the pressure and mix of gases, or the frequency and the voltage of the power, but I can never fully predict the detailed effects any of my actions will have. Though frustrating at times, this unpredictability is at the very heart of my work. This is the personality, the mystery, the life that I try to create in my sculpture.

Ed Kirshner of Oakland, California was born in New York City in 1940.  He studied architecture and sculpture at Cornell University, the University of California at Berkeley and the Oskar Kokoschka School of Vision in Austria.  After thirty years of developing and financing affordable housing, he returned to study art at the California College of the Arts in Oakland as well as at Pilchuck and Corning glass schools and Northlands Creative Glass in Scotland.  His glass and gas plasma sculptures have been exhibited throughout the U.S. as well as in Taiwan, Japan, Australia, Austria, France and Turkey. His work, “Cone of Chaos”, was a Corning Glass selection in 2000 and is included in Corning's recent book "25 Years of New Glass Review."  His piece, "Java High," was a recent acquisition of the di Rosa Fine Arts Preserve in Napa, California.  Ed has taught glass and gas plasma workshops in the U.S. as well as in Asia and Europe and is on the faculty of The Crucible Fire Arts School in Oakland and the Glass Furnace in Turkey.  He is also a Trustee and the Treasurer of the Museum of Neon Art (MONA) in Los Angeles.  www.aurorasculpture.com

Cornelius Boots

Closing night will showcase a live performance by Oakland reed renegade Cornelius Boots. A progressive rock composer, bass clarinet performance specialist, wu wei woodwind instructor and Zen flutist. Founder of Edmund Welles. Boots is currently undertaking more large-scale, primordial, avant-orchestral compositions. Recent pieces include a commission by Chamber Music America and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. 

The live performance for Material Evidence will reflect the elements of earthiness, experimentalism, and unpredictability found in the artwork.  A primarily improvised ambient set which will combine the usage of the robot bass clarinet—an amplified, effected, mutated bass clarinet—and the sounds of the mendicant bamboo flute-playingcharacter "Shunyata Wu-xi" (wizard of the void), utilizing shakuhachi and staff flutes in addition to tape loops, and voice to create minimalist industrial-new age and existential blues. www.corneliusboots.com, www.edmundwelles.com