It's Alive!

Plasma Sculpture by Ed Kirshner & Paintings by Yvette Buigues 

Opening Party Saturday November 15th, 6 to 9pm
Show runs November 9th, through January 6th 2015

FLOAT Gallery is once again proud to present the new work from Ed Kirshner one of the worlds leading plasma artists. Celebrating the 4th state of matter, Kirshner continues to advance plasmas elusive self-replication process for us to behold. Adorning the walls of the gallery Yevette Buigues will be displaying her latest work, having taken yet another turn in her ever evolving twist on animals and nature.

About Ed Kirshner, Plasma Sculptor, Glass Artist
I find the sculpting of kinetic gas plasma within the space of a glass vessel both fascinating and absorbing. As might be expected from a media based on chaos, my work is very experimental. It is most often unpredictable and surprising, as well as extremely sensitive to fine-tuning and a delicate balance between numerous non-linear variables. The resulting chaotic order is beautiful, enthralling, interactive with the viewer and often mesmerizing. It seems suggestive of many other natural processes and forms. I believe that some of this beauty and attraction derives from an underlying similarity between the processes creating the plasma forms and the circuitry and functioning of our minds. They actually seem to be in tune with each other.

So, 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 art.
It has been suggested that the self-organizing chaos of gas plasma is one of the very few natural processes, beyond biochemistry, that might evolve the feedback mechanisms to enable self-replication and thus possibly even life. Igor may have had it right when he declared, “It’s alive! It’s alive!” Aurorasculpture.com

About Yvette Buigues, Painter
When art is transcendent, it will take the common and make it profane. The art of Yvette Buigues takes everyday animals in ordinary situations and imbues these friendly subjects with context and dialogue, giving often taken for granted creatures a unique opportunity to speak to viewers through visual expression and become part of a sort of innocent iconography.
Language is the key to transcendence in Buigues' translation of the lives of animals, insects, and all who appear in her work. Buigues' positioning of creatures in silent dialogue evokes sensations of an important announcement, tracing back to the annunciation painters of the Renaissance and early Christianity. What is this message? Is it a call to respect animals and nature? Is it the artist speaking in her own sacred language? Perhaps reaching into Buigues' own cultural background between the United States and Argentina, there is a quiet reverence for animals in their benign yet glorious nature. This reverence could be seen as an emotional or political statement, as animals sometimes appear with weapons, in landscapes, or with flamboyant floral prints. At other times these figures appear with scripts of jumbled language, almost seeming to be speaking in tongues or in a sort of chant, warning us of something.

Buigues' art crosses the border between animal and human, between countries of origin, between love and war. Her work remains humble, even when glamorous. Perhaps it is that humility that her animals remind us to keep in all circumstances. As Rudyard Kipling tells us in the poem IF: “If you can walk with kings without losing the common touch... you'll be a man my son!” Buigues reminds us that we too are animals, often searching within ourselves for that right thing to say.
-Ana Landis Velazquez,  Heavyblackline.com