Reflecting Forward

Sept. 1 to Oct. 14, 2018

Rochester-area artist Margery Pearl Gurnett will be featured in Schweinfurth Art Center’s Gallery Julius with a solo exhibition, Reflecting Forward, which is opening Sept. 1, 2018. The show features 3D mixed media wall pieces made with glass, paper, paint, and found objects suspended in resin.

“The work is both abstract and narrative,” Gurnett said. “The 3D mixed media pieces consist of multiple layers of glass, both clear and tinted, into which I embed dreamlike imagery that adds a component of mystery to the work, defining the ‘story’ for each piece.”

Gurnett began making 3D layered artwork three years ago, switching from a long career working in hot glass. “When I was blowing glass, I started realizing there were easier ways to create what I was trying to say,” she said in a 2017 Arts in Focus interview. “I didn’t have to fire things onto glass. I could use other materials and I could embed things in between layers of glass.”

Born and raised in New York City, Gurnett earned a bachelor’s degree in fine arts at Carnegie Mellon University and a master’s degree in glass at Rochester Institute of Technology’s School for American Craftsmen. Her artwork is in the collection of the White House in Washington, D.C., along with distinguished private residences and commercial spaces. Her piece Talk to The Forest was a winner in the 2017 Art Olympia Biennial, an international open art competition in Japan.