Untitled (stained glass)
- Artist:
- Type: Stained Glass
- Medium: Glass
- Production Date: 2012
- Description: Commissioned from the artist. Four panels designed to form one vertical piece.The artist wrote the following at the time of commissioning: 'I am currently in my first year as practice-based PhD student in the School of Languages, Cultures, and Religions at the University of Stirling investigating the redemptive work of art, considering specifically the medium of stained glass. Although glass has been used for thousands of years, reaching its peak in medieval religious architecture, I am considering the significant placements of certain Chagall installations as they were commissioned for places of spiritual reverence (chapels, especially All Saints in Tudley), physical/emotional well-being (Hadassah Medical Center, Jerusalem), and political peace (UN, NYC). Insights gained from a history of aesthetics contribute to our now very visual culture understanding, yet there exists a need for exploration into theological and ethical implications for the public role of visual art. In the past, art has been ostracized from liturgical practice, trivialized by education and therapy, utilized for various agendas, however we rely on visual images to immediately and instinctively cross cultural and communicative boundaries in a contemporary age of mass media, information technology, and global transaction. Great art connects with people and connects people with each other to acknowledge what has been wronged and become an agent of change, or as Gadamer writes, ‘Great art shakes us‘[and] always demands constructive activity on our part‘ (from ‘The Relevance of the Beautiful‘, 1975). Working in an ancient medium to address timeless needs has current relevance and eternal implications: there is hope for what has been destroyed whether it be the individual body, collective community, or global relations. It is able to do this, as Gadamer elsewhere writes, because "we must always order anew what threatens to dissolve before us. This is what the productive activity of the artist and our own experience of art reveals in exemplary fashion" ("Art and Imitation", 1966). Visual art can reveal and restore that which can be remembered; glass can draw us near and reflect our distorted selves in something beautifully shared, and this research explores that in theory and practice towards a culminating dissertation and installation exhibition. '
- Digital Copy:A digital copy exists.
- Location: Pathfoot A-B link corridor 3
- Related Material: AC/AF/M/18
- Accession Number: 2012.39
- Contact: University of Stirling Art Collection
