ARTISTIC STATEMENT
I have been working with several art technics during many years but I am especially interested in 3-dimensional form in different materials. I started having live models part time in two different collective studios for artists and taking commissions. One of theme was about, “The journey of life”, with a life-size pair in bronze of a woman and a child for a house complex and company hotel and new buildings on an old train station. The most important for me was there to express their movements forward and show a bound of trust between the persons and for the future.
In beginning of 2000 I saw several very interesting exhibitions of the Swedish artists; Bertil Vallien’s fantastic sand castings of boats and man and of Kjell Engman’s scenography’s and humours design in glass and became interested in working in glass.
I think my interest from working with glass comes from the way you can see an object or situation from different angels and perspectives at the same time. The material Is dualistic and can be rich of contrasts. Transparency with fluent couleurs can co-exist parallel with heavier parts with opaqueness. Light can pass from the outside skin through a core and stay buried and kidnapped in the depth or be more reflecting the outside piece or the surroundings. Glass can also contain a feeling of time I think, from short moments to eternity being used in many ways like realistic, or surrealistic or ethereal. For me glass can express life in itself. Glass has many possibilities.
I started learning about making moulds and lost wax processes for making kiln casted glass going several years in advanced courses and workshops for example hand building, soft moulds, screen and printing developing my own ideas and mould processes in Sweden.
In 2016 I went to Northlands creative glass school” in Scotland, for a master’s course called “Casting in Nature“ with Colin Reid and I found it very inspiring and which lead me to work with some lost and found objects transforming them or developing them into new forms and objects.
Before having my own studio in Täby. I worked as a social worker for 10 years in areas in Stockholm with 90 % immigrants, mostly children and teenagers that where living /playing in the streets often without any adult support. I started and lead a 10-year long project having a School of Art, for these children, teenagers and their teachers. As it is something I have worked with and have a lot of interest in I found Silvia Levenson’s glassworks important showing situations about children’s upbringing, relations and domestic violence so I have also been to Northlands to have a course for her about” Changing Boundaries. It made me able to express more in glass of my thoughts about identity and how conflicts in relations can influence a person and in a family.
2019 I participated in a workshop with Max Jacquard and Angela Twaites about core casting and silicon processes which gave new complex alternatives in the mould making. Making a core and use different couleurs of the glass and leaving a hole looking as something is still there was very exciting. It was also very interesting to see and follow other artists working processes.
I work now with themes about” Who´s truth”, portraits of women who´s personality are hidden in different ways in different cultures and topics about Children’s feelings, Balancing in life. I will continue to work with doubleness and in future in glass as a material and in different themes. I would like to work some more with sandblasting where some parts of a situation/experience/persons are hidden leaving something for the spectator’s fantasy or own interpretation.
Sunniva Bernhardsson