April Surgent to deliver lecture as part of solo musem show

April Surgent, The Delivery, 2009. Fused and engraved glass. H 27 3/16, W 28 7/16 in.

Continuing its tradition of supporting living Northwest Coast artists with solo exhibitions, the Bellevue Arts Museum unveiled the work of April Surgent for an exhibition entitled “Into the Surface” that opened last week and will continue through April 3, 2011. This coming Friday, November 5th, from 6:30 to 7:30 PM, Surgent will give a lecture at the museum discussing her glass engravings based on her own photographs of scenes of everyday life. As she told the GLASS Quarterly Hot Sheet in an interview earlier this year, Surgent has been seeking to document how the economic downturn has effected life in her community in and around Seattle. The images carved into the glass often feature compositions captured partly through reflected glass windows.

April Surgent, The Passenger, 2009. Cameo engraved glass. H 19 1/4, W 17, D 2 in.

Surgent’s exhibition includes over one hundred 6-by-12-inch glass panels, and presents a fractured urban landscape of observed scenes from daily life. “We are thrilled to have been able to nurture and partake in the growth of so many promising artists, including John Grade, Mandy Greer and now April Surgent,” says Stefano Catalani, Bellevue’s director of curatorial affairs and artistic director, who also curated Surgent’s exhibition. “It is all about sparking new conversations, within and beyond the boundaries of this region.”

Born in 1982, Surgent studied glass production in Bornholm, Denmark as a teenager. In 2003, she received a scholarship to attend Pilchuck Glass School, where she learned cold-working and traditional cameo engraving techniques, studying with master Czech engraver and mentor Jiri Harcuba. She graduated with honors from the Australian National University School of Art, Canberra in 2004. In 2009, she was awarded the Neddy Artist Fellowship for glass through the Behnke Foundation, and received the UrbanGlass New Talent award in 2010. Her work can be found in the collections of the Chrysler Museum, Museum of Glass, Australian National University Public Artwork Program (Canberra, Australia) and the Embassy of Spain Art Collection (Canberra, Australia) among others.

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