Julius Weiland combines his expertise in glass and paint with his newest exhibition “Cluster and Contour,” on view at Berlin's lorch + seidel gallery through February 3rd, 2018. Despite the contrast between not only paint and glass but the figures depicted in adjacent works, Weiland manages to make disparate subjects and media complement one another. When looking at the sculptures, the viewer can assume the original, individual pieces of glass were in the midst of a complex fusing process before they were frozen in this moment. The same goes for the paintings; they depict humans that appear to have been undergoing deep thought or contemplation. Weiland’s creations all seem to be represent a single, unique moment when motion is arrested.
Weiland created his glass sculptures through a strategic process of gathering, stacking, and heating a combination of found and purpose-made glass pieces. After melting in the kiln and being fused to a precise state that makes original shapes distorted but somewhat intact, Weiland lets the glass pieces cool. Sandblasting gives the figures their shimmering, finishing touch, replacing sharp edges with an indistinct line. As rhetorically questioned in the exhibition statement on the gallery website, “is it a clump of plastic refuse fished out of the sea? Or a heap of matt-etched (sic), transparent poison receptacles, their insides coated with soapy-looking, drippy, paint residue? Or an accumulation of weather-beaten, antique oil bottles?”
After creating his images on canvas with stencils, the artist applies several layers of paint, which are actually sprayed on as a way to intensify the surface texture, and remove the brush stroke. By transforming the nature of glass and paint, he works to achieve new effects that relate to his efforts to document unique moments in time.
IF YOU GO:
Julius Weiland
“Cluster and Contour"
Through February 3rd, 2018
lorch+seidel contemporary
Tucholskystr. 38
D-10117 Berlin-Mitte | German
+49 (0)30 - 978 939 35
info@lorch-seidel.de
Website