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The New Contemporary Art Magazine
The stunning stained glass work of Judith Schaechter is the center of an upcoming exhibition at the Memorial Art Gallery at the University of Rochester, the first major survey of the artist's 37-year career. "The Path to Paradise: Judith Schaechter’s Stained-Glass Art" arrives on February 16, 2020, and runs through May 24 at the space, then traveling to the Toledo Museum of Art and the Des Moines Art Center. Schaechter was last featured on our site here.
There's a magical quality in the stained glass work of Erlend Tait, a Scottish artist who offers both a contemporary slant to the form and observes its traditions. He packs these works with the symbolism and vibrancy that recall ancient craftsman, yet his figures are representative of the modern, diverse populous.
Self-taught Scottish artist Pinkie Maclure crafts stained glass works tackling contemporary themes while acknowledging the form's history. The artist recently won the Zealous Emerge Craft Prize for her work, described as reinventing “a medieval art form to question the modern world, through darkly humorous stories and wryly observed imagery.”
Laura Keeble is a London based artist whose works often use unconventional materials, many with references to consumerism and the contemporary art market. Her recent sculpture series interprets familiar, commonly seen objects and global brand logos using reclaimed church stained glass: Starbucks cups, McDonalds happy meals and CCTV cameras are just a few of the objects that she has cut from original antique church windows, made fantastic and divine with this stunning, discarded material.
Beautiful. Gaudy. Elegant. Sensitive. These are not words one hears too often when discussing the subject of basketball. San Francisco based artist Victor Solomon has brought some sparkle to the sport with his series of elegant stained glass basketball boards that move the luxury lifestyle of the players onto the court. First featured on our blog last year, Solomon's "Literally Balling" series makes a connection between the glamour of being a professional athlete and the historical opulence formerly reserved for royalty.
Dutch artist Stefan Glerum has an illustration style that lends perfectly to stained glass, his latest venture. In his traditional artwork, we can see the influence of Art Deco and Japanese woodblock prints, with figures drawn in bold lines against vibrantly colored backgrounds with unusual angles of view. His simple and flat way of drawing is also reminiscent of Bauhaus, Italian Futurism and Russian Constructivism, which he credits as his inspiration. Glerum most recently applied his design sensibility to the Polderweg in Amsterdam, a housing complex of 72 apartments and impressive 60 foot cathedral-high stained glass windows.
Working with stained glass is not something that one can do without practice. After a year of apprenticing under veteran glass masters, San Francisco based artist Victor Solomon got to master this delicate craft himself. He has always been a big basketball fan, so it felt only natural that he turn his skills onto basketball backboards, which he transforms into works of art. Each backboard in his series titled "Literally Balling" is ornamented with luxurious materials and gems, including the net and rim.
Judith Schaechter draws on Catholic iconography, contemporary culture, and Greek mythology to create stained glass works of art that recall Hieronymus Bosch's chaotic hellscapes. Based in Philadelphia, Schaechter has work in the permanent collections of several world-renowned museums: Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Corning Museum of Glass, and The Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution. She utilizes the timeworn art form of stained glass to create dark, surreal narratives that are quite removed from the religious imagery we typically expect from this medium.