„BETWIXT" – Brent Cole

MOYA Gallery, ul. Księcia Witolda 2
Exhibition open: 22.10.2019 – 03.11.2019
Opening: 22.10.2019, godzina 4 pm – 5 pm


Closer to the End than the Beginning

Writing this document at first seemed to be a challenge. How do you aptly translate a visual language into a verbal or written language? Writing about my work at times feels like my feeble attempts at learning a foreign language. The task of translating my visual thoughts to paper became much easier once I realized that I have been writing this statement in my head throughout my stay in Poland, each experience morphing and changing these visual concepts.

This accumulation of my work sits in a contemporary gallery, in the middle of the Odra at the heart of a very old town. It is inspiring to imagine the changes and the lives that the river has been witness to even as it continues its age old flow to the sea. A sea whose salinity we find present in our tears and a home from our ancient past. In addition to water, our chemical make up is attributed to the stars. We are but a tiny spec in the universe as like the river, we navigate our daily lives.

I had the unique opportunity of navigating six months of my life teaching, living and researching in Wroclaw through a Fulbright grant. My time was full of many meaningful interactions and exposure to a host of new sights, sounds and tastes. Wroclaw became my home away from home. In early adulthood, home changes from a place to a concept. Now I mainly define home as where my immediate family resides. I have had considerable amounts of time away from my family and the various roles that defined my life half way around the world. While experiencing new things in Poland, my life back home, much like the Odra, continued. I became a voyeur, with communication being my only tether to a life that was 7385 kilometers away. Watching my wife say goodnight. Watching my daughter changing from child to a young lady. Watching my mother embark on her last journey, hoping surgery would save her from the cancer that ultimately returned her to the stars and universe.

We are so much more than these mediated experiences. We have many more shared experiences than dissimilar ones.
BETWIXT is my attempt at materializing these experiences.

Brent Cole

BRENT COLE
Graduated as a Bachelor of Fine Arts in glass, the Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland, Ohio, the USA, 1992. Graduated as a Master of Fine Arts in sculpture, the University of Illinois, Champaign, Illinois, the USA, 2003.

He has gained teaching experience in numerous educational institutions. Since 2010, he has been working as Associate Professor of Glass, the Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana, the USA.

He has received several grants, including the Presidential Travel Grant, the Ball State University – Wrocław, Poland, and Berlin, Germany, 2014. He has also received multiple awards in the USA.

He has participated in 5 individual exhibitions in the USA, including: A Car, Stars, and the In-between, the Earlham College Gallery, Richmond, Indiana, the USA, 2015. He has taken part in about 35 collective exhibitions in the USA, Denmark, Poland, and Slovakia, such as: Ceramics and Glass. Sensual Areas, the City Museum of Wrocław; Wrocław, Poland, 2016; Charlottenborg Spring Exhibition, the Charlottenborg Palace, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2016.

He uses different materials and perceptual perspectives to approach an idea from several vantage points. He is interested in the intersection of our own personal histories and the similarities in our experiences.