Glass Sparks: Jeff Zimmer

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Washington Glass School alumn Jeff Zimmer had returned to the school for a visit in January. Now a resident of the UK, Jeff lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, where he received a MDES in Glass & Architectural Glass, at the Edinburgh College of Art, (ECA), where he is now an instructor.

In the UK, Jeff has been making quite a name for his artwork – recently featured in the British Glass Biennale and shown in a collaboration between Contemporary Applied Arts & Contemporary Glass Society This year he will be exhibitng at the Perth Museum and Art Gallery, in the UK .

Jeff’s work was selected to be part of the Corning Museum of Glass’ New Glass Review 31. Tina Oldknow, Curator of Modern Glass, The Corning Museum of Glass said of his work:

“… glass is not immediately apparent in Jeff Zimmer’s ‘1/1000th the Distance between Me and You (in a Deadrise)’, but it is an essential part of the work. A dark and dramatic object, it is constructed of 22 layers of enameled and sandblasted glass in a light box. In the obscured photograph, an object in the distance that emerges from black clouds under a clearing sky can be faintly discerned: is it a ship or something else? Using a box of cut glass sheets, Zimmer creates the depth and luminosity of a painting, but it is an image that undoubtedly changes every time it is viewed, depending on the angle and the ambient light.”

While at the Glass School, Jeff worked on a piece that will be shown at the WGS 10th Anniversary Exhibition to be held this May at Washington, DC’s Longview Gallery.

A strong narrative is created by meticulously layering imagery made from enameled and sandblasted glass.

The layered composition works in a tremendously subtle way; the depth of field changes as the viewer moves around the work, allowing one’s perception to shift and migrate.

Jeff evaluates and modifies each individual layer of glass as he fires the enamel onto the glass sheets.

Jeff constructs a box of glass for presentation, and installs LED lighting to illuminate the panels.
The box-like construction of each work creates an almost cinematic experience of space, volume and depth. One is drawn in by the emergent light from beneath the horizon or trailing into the distance like a wake.
Check out the final piece – titled “Fog Of Communication” at the 10th Anniversary Show!
Click HERE to jump to Jeff’s website.

For other glass artist profiles:

Diane Cabe

Sean Hennessey

Teddie Hathaway

Elizabeth Mears

Allegra Marquart

Jackie Greeves

CMOG New Glass Review 31

>Published by The Corning Museum of Glass (CMOG), New Glass Review is an annual survey of glass in contemporary art, architecture, craft, and design created in the previous year. The works are chosen by a changing jury of curators, artists, designers, art dealers, and critics, which, over the past 25 years, has included Dale Chihuly, Clement Greenberg, Stanislav Libenský, Richard Marquis, David McFadden, Yoriko Mizuta, Lois Moran , Jean-Luc Olivié , Tom Patti, Ginny Ruffner, Bertil Vallien, and Toots Zynsky. Museum jurors have included Thomas S. Buechner, the Museum’s founding director, and modern glass curators Susanne K. Frantz, Tina Oldknow, and William Warmus.

This year is the 31st annual review, and the jurors were Jon Clark, Professor, Tyler School of Art, Rosa Barovier Mentasti, independent art historian, curator, and critic, Zesty Meyers, artist and owner R 20th Century, and Tina Oldknow, the Corning Museum’s Curator of Modern Glass. The jurors selected 100 works from 888 international artists that sent over 2,500 images of work for the competition.

The Washington DC area is represented by some familiar names – the Washington Glass School’s Michael Janis; Washington Glass School alumni Jeff Zimmer, and Weisser Glass Studio’s Nancy Weisser.

The book of work is published in Germany and the copies have just arrived stateside. Congrats to the artists!

Michael Janis
Touching With A Lighter Hand
kilnformed glass, glass powder imagery
95 cm x 50 cm

Jeff Zimmer
1/1000th the Space Between Me and You (In a Deadrise)
layers of enamelled & sandlasted glass in glass lightbox
545 x 225 x 210 mm/21″ x 8.75 ” x 8.25″

Nancy Weisser
Broken Memories
assembled kilnformed glass
305cm x 762cm

Click Here for the New Glass Review 32 “Call for Entries”