Continuing through April 2, 2016
Many of Alex Gabriel Bernstein’s circular glass and fused-steel sculptures suggest celestial objects, such as crescent moons, hollowed-out suns, shooting stars and even entire galaxies. Others are more like sea creatures or vessels filled with water being ruffled by the wind. “Green Blue Half Moon” seems to depict a distant world where a setting sun creates a green and yellow glow along the horizon. In “New Neo Steel Half Moon,” the fused steel extends into a sea filled with phosphorescent organisms that turn the water blue, green, pink and purple. Besides Bernstein’s circular sculptures, there are monolithic pieces on cut-steel bases that transition into transparent or translucent crystals. “Hunter Green Crystal” morphs into a green emerald, while “Crystal Spark” resembles a diamond with a core of effervescent bubbles. The show is installed so that the viewer can look through one crescent-shaped piece to another, and beyond that to yet another.
Bernstein creates these sculptures by filling a mold with glass and heating it in the oven. Next he selects the colors and mixes them in or applies them in a painterly way. Eventually the glass melts into a solid block that is cooled, so that it can be cut and chiseled into a distinctive shape. Using a reductive process, the artist works the surface, creating smooth, shiny sections and raw, rough areas, balancing translucency with opacity. The glass and fused-steel pieces evolved from an accident in the studio, when hot glass splashed onto his father’s steel sculpture (both of his parents are artists). The latter was ruined, but Bernstein had discovered a new technique. Of the 19 pieces in the show, eight incorporate fused steel that adds another dimension to the work — an earthly aspect that contrasts to the ethereal nature of the glass.
Bernstein imagines his sculptures growing and evolving over time. “I imagine if you were to return in a thousand years, the sculptures would be towering in height, until they filled the entire room,” he said, hence the title of the show, "Natural Progressions." The works are inspired by natural phenomena and express the constant evolution of the universe.
