 Ed Glass, Triventures, alabaster, 2010 The work Like much contemporary art, Ed Glass's work is rooted in "concept" at the same time as it creates a powerful visual connection with the viewer not often seen in today's sculpture. It allows the viewer to take immediate pleasure in the physical form of the art and then gradually to come to appreciate the concept behind the work. Ed's pieces maintain the highest standards of technique and craft. He works the original stone sculpture with hand tools, and uses one of the finest art foundries in the United States to make the bronze castings under his personal direction. The concepts which inform Ed's work stem from one or more fundamental ideas: that the ultimate in beauty is the female form; that visual excitement comes from the resolution of competing values (angles and curves, male and female, or simply light and dark); and the desire to find an organic sensuality in dense, hard stone. The sensuality of the form is often the first thing to strike the viewer. An allegiance to the female form is often immediately obvious although in some pieces it reveals itself more slowly. Similarly, the resolution of shapes in one of Ed's works comes clearer to the viewer as he or she spends more time with the piece. Ultimately, the artist's goal is to create works that, however much thought and discussion they may provoke on a conceptual level, can be appreciated and understood by the viewer on a purely visual basis. If a sculpture is successful, it is because the viewer enjoys a profoundly positive visceral experience first, which can then be more fully informed by its underlying concept. When all is said and done, the sculptor's purpose is to use the highest skills and technique in his armory to provide the viewer with an experience that is both positive and deeply felt: a sense of the beauty that can be contained in an object of art and a new way to appreciate intellectually compelling ideas. These are works that will endure.
The sculptor Ed's first stone sculpture was made when he was fourteen years old and living in Texas. Since then he has worked in a variety of media, including photography and ceramics, and has produced sculpture in wood, wire, metal and stone. Ultimately he has returned to stone as the area of primary concentration and expression. In the interim, Ed "earned a living" in a variety of other fields, and only in recent years has the making of sculpture come to be his primary activity--indeed, his life work. Collections Ed's work has been acquired by collections in New York, California and Israel, including both residences and corporate sites. |
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