Distant Electric Vision by Jon Lewis | Solo Exhibition
10th January - 18th February 2022
Vessel Gallery presents ‘Distant Electric Vision’, a new & highly anticipated solo show by glass artist, Jon Lewis. Engaged with themes of recycling, the creative synthesis of glass with metal, and the transformation of outmoded consumer products into art, this exhibition will reveal brand new works conceived from the artist’s unlimited imagination. From scorched Meteorites to sculptural Trains - holding aloft their own abstract billboard declarations - this exhibition will surprise, intrigue and astound.
Unveiled artworks will include Lewis’s Moon Rocks, an ongoing series first created in 1998. These tactile pieces incorporate dichroic filters which reflect light of a chosen frequency, while absorbing the rest. When they are placed between two layers of glass with a diffused surface, the resulting object has a shimmering inner glow that changes colour depending on the angle of the light – a technique Lewis invented. In his own words; “They look like they’ve fallen out of the sky and are a significant artistic & surprising technical discovery, which still delights and amazes me over twenty years later”.
His Apertura series are formed from recycled obsolescent Bang & Olufsen television screens. Originally press moulded for its former use, the optical glass - with a high lead content - is melted down and blown into amorphic fluid forms. Each piece is then showered with sparks of iron ore which fuse with the surface of the glass upon impact. Lewis’s name for this unique process is “spark impregnation”. This metallic layer is then patinated to age and weather the exterior. An ‘aperture’ of glass is left uncovered to echo a television screen, equally serving as a penetrating observation window. For Lewis “The Apertura pieces capture an aesthetic quality which I have been pursuing for many years”.
‘Distant Electric Vision’, originates from 1908, a term coined by the engineer A. A. Campbell Swinton, who presciently described the principles of the television years before the technology existed to make one. Alluding to the fusion of prehistoric and futuristic themes, there could be no better exhibition title, yet it is Campbell's and Lewis’s shared fearless belief in their ideas that uniquely unites them. However, unlike this progressive engineer, Lewis has a wealth of knowledge and craftsmanship to bring all of his to fruition.
Lewis was awarded the Glass Society Prize in the British Glass Biennale 2019. His Transceiver received an Honourable Mention in Trace - Showcasing Sustainable Glass Art, in the Glass Art Society’s Virtual 2021 Conference. His dichroic glass has been used in a number of prestigious architectural commissions, including in the Space Pyramidion at the Child Museum of Cairo and the Bliegiessen Sculpture by Thomas Heatherwick at the Wellcome Collection. His work is in the permanent collection of the Glasmuseum Lette, Germany.
Exhibition CatalogueUnveiled artworks will include Lewis’s Moon Rocks, an ongoing series first created in 1998. These tactile pieces incorporate dichroic filters which reflect light of a chosen frequency, while absorbing the rest. When they are placed between two layers of glass with a diffused surface, the resulting object has a shimmering inner glow that changes colour depending on the angle of the light – a technique Lewis invented. In his own words; “They look like they’ve fallen out of the sky and are a significant artistic & surprising technical discovery, which still delights and amazes me over twenty years later”.
His Apertura series are formed from recycled obsolescent Bang & Olufsen television screens. Originally press moulded for its former use, the optical glass - with a high lead content - is melted down and blown into amorphic fluid forms. Each piece is then showered with sparks of iron ore which fuse with the surface of the glass upon impact. Lewis’s name for this unique process is “spark impregnation”. This metallic layer is then patinated to age and weather the exterior. An ‘aperture’ of glass is left uncovered to echo a television screen, equally serving as a penetrating observation window. For Lewis “The Apertura pieces capture an aesthetic quality which I have been pursuing for many years”.
‘Distant Electric Vision’, originates from 1908, a term coined by the engineer A. A. Campbell Swinton, who presciently described the principles of the television years before the technology existed to make one. Alluding to the fusion of prehistoric and futuristic themes, there could be no better exhibition title, yet it is Campbell's and Lewis’s shared fearless belief in their ideas that uniquely unites them. However, unlike this progressive engineer, Lewis has a wealth of knowledge and craftsmanship to bring all of his to fruition.
Lewis was awarded the Glass Society Prize in the British Glass Biennale 2019. His Transceiver received an Honourable Mention in Trace - Showcasing Sustainable Glass Art, in the Glass Art Society’s Virtual 2021 Conference. His dichroic glass has been used in a number of prestigious architectural commissions, including in the Space Pyramidion at the Child Museum of Cairo and the Bliegiessen Sculpture by Thomas Heatherwick at the Wellcome Collection. His work is in the permanent collection of the Glasmuseum Lette, Germany.
Exhibition artworks
