‘Brilliant’ exhibit runs through December at Columbus’ Hawk Galleries

On Dec 5, 2022

A giant, red and white striped container of popcorn, a fish wearing a top hat, an enormous garlic bulb alive with colored streams moving up its stems, and red and blue sculpted neurons. They have nothing in common except one thing: They’re all made of glass.

These often curious but always beautiful pieces are part of “Brilliant,” an exhibit of glass works by 18 artists from Ohio and around the country that continues until the end of the month Downtown at Hawk Galleries.

“This is the International Year of Glass, according to the United Nations General Assembly (intended to highlight the importance of the medium),” said gallery owner Tom Hawk. “So, in this exhibit, the theme is an overview of lots of different ideas in glass.”

Ideas do indeed abound from the artists, each of whom brings intense individuality to their work.

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Glass can dazzle and amuse

In his glass, gas and phosphor sculptures, Connecticut artist Mundy Hepburn (nephew to Katherine Hepburn) achieves sparkling movement and pizzazz. His largest work, “Xenon Garlic,” begins at the base with a clear glass garlic bulb with stems rising toward the ceiling and pulsing with orange, pink and blue gas lights.

Columbus artist Brianna Gluszak brightens a wall with her three large neon glass installations and Seattle artist Dan Friday (one of the exhibit’s two finalists in the Canadian reality glassblowing competition “Blown Away”) has created the nearly 3-foot tall, multicolored glass “Feather.”

The other “Blown Away” finalist, John Sharvin, of Pittsburgh, uses blown and hot sculpted glass to create, among other works, a school of unusual fish. One wears a saddle and another, “A Very Dapper Fish,” wears a black top hat.

The ‘anatomy’ of glass

Columbus artist Forge Garrabrant conjures up parts of the brain and nervous system with his vivid blue and red “Neurons.”

Jack Gramann, a graduate of Columbus College of Art & Design, uses hot sculpted glass to form what looks like a swirl of purple, pink and blue taffy that creates a human head in the work “Cavern.”

And Tom Marino, of Toledo, manages, without lights or candles, to achieve vessels that glow.

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Glass can do the impossible

Artists who bring a touch of trompe l’oeil to the exhibit include Martin Blank, of Seattle, with his large “Violet Lotus” flower and Jonathan Capps, of Columbus, who, while working in Finland, was inspired by birch trees. In his “Birch Demijohn #1,” a glass vessel is wrapped with what looks like woven wood or leather but is, of course, fused and blown glass.