Hot glass sculpture

Press, 14 September 1988, Page 25

Hot glass sculpture

An American artist, Richard Marquis will show his muchacclaimed glass sculpture at the Dowse Art Museum in Lower Hutt this month. The exhibition by. the former Fulbright Scholar is part of the Fulbright Programme’s fortieth anniversary celebrations. His checkered teapots, on multicoloured glass stems and towering candy-colour rocket jars, are born of an imagination some have called genius. The Dowse director, James Mack, a Marquis fan, believes his work will inspire local artists again, as it did on his first visit here in 1981.

“Hot glass in New Zealand is not as vigorous as it once was. Alter Marquis’ last visit, the hot glass movement took some quantum leaps. Given the present state of the movement, this visit couldn’t have come at a better time,” Mack says.

Marquis’ transmutation of hot molten glass, straight from the kiln, into robust and brightly coloured sculptures, is

pure alchemy, Mack says. It is a magic the artist learned while studying ceramics and glassblowing for a fine arts degree at the University of California in 1967. Later, Marquis completed a masters thesis, producing the Lord’s Prayer in Murano glass. The piece earned him wide critical acclaim. Marquis later sought to further refine his technical skills. With a Fulbright grant, he secured an apprenticeship at a Venetian glass factory. In a year, he mastered the technical finesse of the Italians. In the early 19705, he moved back to the United States, and in 1977 became an assistant professor of art at the University of California. He is now blowing glass full-time, in an isolated studio in Seattle. The exhibition of 10 pieces will open at the Dowse Art Museum on September 16, but Marquis . arrived > a month earlier to make several exhibition pieces at the Wanganui Regional Community College’s new glass blowing studio.