"Fire and Water" Michael Boroniec, Jae Yong Kim, Dylan Martinez

[New York] Lyons Wier Gallery is pleased to present “Fire and Water,” a group show featuring works by artists Michael Boroniec, Jae Yong Kim and Dylan Martinez.         

“Fire & Water” brings together three immensely innovative sculptors working in clay and glass today.  Each artist is uniquely pushing the boundaries of their respective materials offering a fresh perspective to their craft.  A common trait amongst the three artists is their deftness of hand, ingenuity and brazen embrace of beauty.  Together, "Fire & Water" celebrates these artists’ unrelenting respect for their materials driven by an unwavering dedication to the advancement of their artistic vision.

Michael Boroniec’s Collections is comprised of two collections, Gourd Vessels and Spatial Spirals, that investigate ceramic material through vessel form. Collections: Gourd Vessels are works that stem from a long tradition of emulating the gourd in utilitarian wares since the Neolithic age. The works are wheel thrown with a localized clay body found in Berkshire County, MA, and finished in a second firing with a smooth satin black glaze giving it the feel of compressed carbon. The forms become purely sculptural objects as the extreme long neck removes any utilitarian purpose. These vessels are the second iteration of Boroniec's Gourd Vessel series originally exhibited at the Fuller Craft Museum in Massachusetts in 2006.

Collections: Spatial Spirals What began with a single spiral has evolved into a series of vessels that vary in form, degree of expansion, and number of coils. Each piece is wheel thrown then deconstructed. This process reveals aspects of the vessel that most rarely encounter. Within the walls, maker’s marks become evident and contribute to the texture. The resultant ribbon effect, reminiscent of a wheel trimming, lends fragility, elegance, and motion to a medium generally perceived as hard and heavy. This emphasizes a resistance of gravity, allowing negative space to unravel and become part of the form. The result is a body of sculptural objects resembling and born of functional vessels.

Jae Yong Kim pays tribute to his Korean roots with his Chunghwa Baekja (traditional blue and white pottery) series. Employing his signature donuts as his canvas, Kim's ceramics are hand drawn Sehwa (Korean New Year's paintings) that depict intricate landscapes populated with birds, flora, and animals that traditionally hang in the front doorway to ward off bad spirits and promote good health, long life, wealth and fertility for the incoming year. Years of trial and error and learning from local masters has enabled Kim to successfully apply the traditional Chunghwa Baekja technique to his donuts. Through color, imagery and form, Kim's latest series is an homage to the three cultures that influenced the artist during his lifetime: Korea; traditional blue and white pottery, the Middle East; Persian carpets that frame his compositions, and the United States; for its brazen consumerism and gluttonous consumption. Kim combines various imagery and artistic techniques he culled from living on these different continents to tell a story about his search for identity and a familiar sense of home.

Dylan Martinez' Surge series is crafted by first creating large cylinders of colored glass. Once cooled, each cylinder is cut into rings. The edges are then ground and polished. The rings are slowly heated to 1000°F. A gather of glass is balled up on a steel rod at 2100°F and used to pick up the ring. The ring is then heated in a chamber at 2200°F, at this temperature the glass is softened to the point where it begins to move and change shape. Each ring is heated and manipulated until they capture a sense of movement. The ring is then slowly cooled to room temperature over a 12 hour cool down period before the base is ground and polished.

Made entirely of hot sculpted glass, Martinez' popular H2O/SiO2 water bag sculptures challenge the viewers' perception. The seemingly water-filled 'plastic' bags are all but what they seem. Driven by the fact that Martinez is color blind, his alternative way of seeing the world has inspired him to ask us to question our own ways of seeing and what we perceive as truth.

For more information, please contact:

Lyons Wier Gallery

542 West 24th Street

New York, NY 10011

Tel: +1 212 242 6220

gallery@lyonswiergallery.com

www.lyonswiergallery.com