New Glass Sculpture

at 2260 Oak Bay Ave.

Preview: Saturday, Oct.3, 2009 10 am - 5:30 pm

(work subject to prior sale)

Opening Reception Sunday, Oct. 4, 2009 1 - 5 pm

Artist in attendance

Elizabeth Ely, harpest, Karel Roessingh, piano

Exhibition continues until Oct. 24, 2009

Following twelve months of studies in drawing and painting in Mexico, Waine Ryzak began working with several fine-art glass technologies in the early 1970s after attending a conference on art glass in Dublin.  Along with several other young international students and artists, in the early 1970s, she was part of the pioneering developments in contemporary glass ideas, design and technologies at the famous Pilchuck Glass Centre in Seattle.

While her work is grounded in the Pilchuck modernist aesthetic, since 1985, she has produced sculptures that radiate a specifically archetypal and even a prehistoric spirituality. Her emulation of ancient artists' representation of the magic of nature has taken her on regular sabbatical studies around the world, and many archeological sites have deeply influenced her creativity and philosophy.  Among many others, she has visited Uxmal and Chichen-Itza in Mexico, Manchu-Picchu and Easter Island, many ancient Buddhist temples of South-East Asia, and the ancient Egyptian sites of Giza and Abu Simbel.  She has also been an avid researcher in departments of ancient art in European museums.

Waine Ryzak's new sculptures of archetypal forms reflect her interest in the biophilia hypothesis, the suggestion that there is a natural link between human beings and other living systems.  As the movement to change our relationship with nature gathers force, this theory makes increasing sense.  In her contribution to a new human (and humane) consciousness, Ryzak's new glass sculptures reflect two of her deepest concerns. One is her affinity for the life rhythms of nature as a metaphor of a pre-human spirituality, and the other her art practice as a metaphor of her continuing striving for a wisdom and knowledge she can share with others through her art.