Biography
Steven Ciezki’s artistic journey is represented by twenty-three years of drawing and eleven years of glassblowing, painting, and photography. He received his BFA in glass at Illinois State University in 2012. Glass has taken Steven to all corners of the country as a student, teacher, and professional glass artist. Teaching opportunities in Arizona inspired him to write and illustrate a glassblowing technique book called “Life on the Rails”. The title describes both his nomadic lifestyle as well as the rails at the bench where hot glass is shaped by hand.
Artist Statements
Speaker Towers / Air Sirens
I grew up in the southern suburbs of Chicago. There weren't tall buildings in my home town, but Chicago was just a quick drive north. Beginning in 2014, opportunities with glass encouraged world travel. For periods of time, I experienced cities in the US, Bosnia, Turkey, Belgium, Australia, and Japan.
This series explores speakers on towers, similar to loudspeakers on a minaret or an air siren. The “tower” is my playground for design. The Speaker Towers have an authoritative quality, similar to a Big Brother society. I think of them as micro-managers. They possess an over the shoulder feeling that holds a strong presence. They represent someone who only speaks and does not listen, someone who only projects and does not receive.
I grew up in the southern suburbs of Chicago. There weren't tall buildings in my home town, but Chicago was just a quick drive north. Beginning in 2014, opportunities with glass encouraged world travel. For periods of time, I experienced cities in the US, Bosnia, Turkey, Belgium, Australia, and Japan.
This series explores speakers on towers, similar to loudspeakers on a minaret or an air siren. The “tower” is my playground for design. The Speaker Towers have an authoritative quality, similar to a Big Brother society. I think of them as micro-managers. They possess an over the shoulder feeling that holds a strong presence. They represent someone who only speaks and does not listen, someone who only projects and does not receive.
Sweet Spot
This work explores memorialized scenes from my environment. I utilize pattern and colored glass as representational components in ‘forced perspective’ oil paintings. When objects line up in multiple planes of space, they compete with each other for spatial attention. Distance flattens and reality gets warped. I take inspiration from these Sweet Spots and glorify a memory with the numerous properties of glass.
This work explores memorialized scenes from my environment. I utilize pattern and colored glass as representational components in ‘forced perspective’ oil paintings. When objects line up in multiple planes of space, they compete with each other for spatial attention. Distance flattens and reality gets warped. I take inspiration from these Sweet Spots and glorify a memory with the numerous properties of glass.
Stacks and Towers
This series celebrates glass and architecture. It was originally inspired by the evolving shape and design of goblets. With an increase in scale and tweak of design the Stacks and Towers were born. While traveling the world, I revisited my visual attraction to metropolitan architecture. While walking through Chicago, New York, Ghent, Adelaide, and Tokyo, I was excited by building profiles that divide the visual field into exciting layers of shape relationships. They play with space. This inspires my design.
This series celebrates glass and architecture. It was originally inspired by the evolving shape and design of goblets. With an increase in scale and tweak of design the Stacks and Towers were born. While traveling the world, I revisited my visual attraction to metropolitan architecture. While walking through Chicago, New York, Ghent, Adelaide, and Tokyo, I was excited by building profiles that divide the visual field into exciting layers of shape relationships. They play with space. This inspires my design.
© 2019 Steven Ciezki Glass
