David Calles Exhibition at Vetri

September 1, 2010

September 2010 at Vetri Glass-Seattle

David Calles: Combinaciones de Filigrana

Exhibition Dates: September 2nd – 30th, 2010

Artist Reception: Thursday, September 2nd, 5:00 – 8:00 p.m.

Vetri Glass-Seattle is pleased to present glass artist David Calles in Combinaciones de Filigrana, his first solo exhibition with the gallery. The show features colorful blown and cold-worked glass sculptures in classic geometric shapes. Working in a studio that overlooks the waterways of Victoria, Calles is influenced by his natural surroundings. He passionately endeavors to capture a “little shock of color from nature” in his vivacious sculptures.

Calles chooses simple forms like ovals, squares, and rectangles, as canvases for brilliant expressions of color. His “Pimpollo” series, a name taken from the Argentine vernacular for any perfect and elegant object, resemble the teardrop silhouette of a rosebud. Just as the bud is a symbol of spring and life, the bright colors and visual electricity of the Pimpollos act as a year-round reminder of the exuberance of spring.

Elements of each piece — understated forms, bold cane patterns, variations in surface texture — are meticulously crafted to highlight the relationships between contrasting and complimentary hues. With deft precision Calles cuts and fuses pieces of glass cane into flat sheets that he then picks up onto a gather of hot glass. The sheets of cane have to match the diameter of the bubble exactly in order to retain the integrity of the design. Each color expands according to its viscosity creating the hypnotic ebb and flow of the cane pattern.

David Calles has owned and operated Miramontes Artworks in Victoria BC — a studio for independent glass artists as well as a resource for designers and non-glass artists – since 2007. Originally from Buenos Aires, Argentina, Calles went on to study in London, England and train as a silversmith in Mexico before receiving a Bachelor’s degree in Art from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island and graduated from the glass program at Sheridan in Ontario, Canada. He has studied under Laura Donefer, Randy Walker and Ed Schmidt and his sculptures are exhibited in galleries across Canada and the United States.