David Reekie
Encyclopedia
David Reekie is an eminent English Glass Sculptor who uses drawing
and glass casting
to express his unique vision of the human condition
. His art can be found in the Victoria and Albert Museum
in London and the Carnegie Museum of Art
in Pittsburgh, as well as in several other public collections in the United Kingdom.
A founding member of British Artists in Glass, now the Contemporary Glass Society
, Reekie's work has featured in countless periodicals and in over 60 exhibits worldwide.
(1947), David Reekie discovered an early love of drawing
that has remained central to his life and work for well over four decades. Distinguished by his talent with a pencil and an active perceptive faculty he was encouraged to attend Art College.
Reekie studied Art at Stourbridge
College of Art (1967–1970). Set in the heart of the UK's traditional glass making industry, Stourbridge College of Art was a natural place of innovation and discovery in the world of Glass art
. What is thought to be the only complete remaining Glass Cone of its kind, reaching 100 ft into the air and enclosing a furnace
around which glass has been made for almost two centuries, the Red House Cone
, dominates the landscape.
At Stourbridge
, Reekie studied under the pioneering glass sculptor Harry Seager whose plate glass stacking pieces, were ahead of his time. He also drew inspiration from Professor Keith Cummings commonly known as the father of English cast glass. A pioneer of Cire perdue, or the lost wax casting
technique, Professor Cummings is an internationally recognized glass artist and author of a number of books on the subject. Reekie went on to study at Birmingham College of Art Education, eventually obtaining a Fellowship in Glass at Lincolnshire and Humberside Arts (1975–1980).
In 1976 Reekie was part of a group of glass artists who founded British Artist's in Glass, now the Contemporary Glass Society
This organisation was partly instrumental in bringing Reekie's work international recognition.
In 1988, he was awarded a Winston Churchill
Travel Fellowship to research glass in Architecture
in the US. His work is currently shown in America by Thomas R.Riley Galleries, Cleveland, Ohio. Reekie has lectured extensively on glass sculpture and his own casting technique, in the UK Europe, US and Australia.
,who worked first for Punch magazine and later collaborated with Lewis Carroll
in producing the illustrations for Alice in Wonderland.
Like Tenniel, Reekie is driven not so much by the inner nature or surface beauty of his medium, so much as by his observations of the foibles and failings of human and animal character. As Jennifer Hawkins Opie of the Victoria and Albert Museum
puts is:
This combination of pictorial satirist and skilled craftsman, places Reekie's work in the tradition of the London born painter
, engraver and social critic, William Hogarth
The C18th Hogarth took a lively interest in London street life and the political questions of the day, which he expressed in his paintings and engraving
s. A Londoner himself, Reekie states that one of the sources of his inspiration is newspaper photographs. The penny dreadful
s of today perhaps providing a ready source of images and stories, revealing the often absurd nature of our relationships with one another and political life.
Reekie's drawings also share certain qualities with those of the French caricaturist Honoré Daumier
. The chequered shirt in Reekie's Different People may well be an implicit reference to the influence of Daumier on his Art.
While these drawings are the means by which Reekie initially expresses his ideas, what makes them unique among his fore-runners, is that they are given three-dimensional form in coloured, cast glass.
method. The lost wax process can be traced back to the Romans
and involves creating a wax model which is then encased in a casting material and steamed out.
The piece is modelled first in wax
with the base being moulded out of clay
. The modelling is a gradual process that takes about two weeks.
Reekie is not simply an Artist, but a craftsman par excellence, and it is here the skills of his Craft first come to the fore. When the artist is satisfied with the model, it is carefully encased in a plaster
and flint
mould. As soon as the mould is dry, the clay is gently removed and the wax model is steamed out. The mould is now ready to be filled with glass cullet.
Whilst the mould is still damp, Reekie paints the inside surfaces with vitreous enamel
which gives the glass the kind of ‘painterly quality’ that characterises his drawings: a technique perfected over many years. In this way the colour is transferred to the three dimensional glass sculpture. A displacement test, using a bucket of water in the manner of Archimedes
, is used to measure the quantity of glass needed. The mould is then filled with cullet and transferred to a kiln
.
The kiln firing programme takes about ten days. During the first 24 hours of the firing programme, more glass is added as the cullet melts down. After 48 hours the glass will have melted and there is nothing to do but wait for the firing cycle to run its course. The cooling or Annealing
process, takes about a week. The mould can then be carefully removed, using wooden tools. When cold the glass is ground and polished with diamond tools
.
His expression of this is often satirically humorous, see for example the Robot Series in the Gallery below. Reekie states that this series was partly inspired by his childhood memories of watching Forbidden Planet
and Robbie the Robot in the 1950s. Before the appearance of Robby, robots in movies and plays tended to lack personality characteristics, being simple mechanical devices. The artist suggests that his pieces are created to question our own, often robotic or mindless behaviour. Indeed, human stupidity is a recurrent theme of Reekie's work.
Perhaps the fact that today we give robots human characteristics, is as much a reflection on our own mechanical
and unimaginative responses to the conditions we find ourselves in, as it is to developing technologies. In some sense our adaptability may well be our undoing. The title of the Robot Series, can be understood as a humorous take on Isaac Asimov
's Robot Series
- and the Three Laws of Robotics
may well feature. Another work by the artist, expressing the same themes is ‘The Engineers’.
Reekie's work is occasionally overtly political, in Rising Tension for instance, we are told that the piece "relates to terrorism or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
" and that it shows his own frustration about people's stubbornness and inability to get along. More often than not however, he is concerned with questions that relate to the human condition
generally:
In A Captive Audience (a work commissioned by the Victoria and Albert Museum
) the text accompanying the piece described it in the following terms:
In a series of sculptures entitled Living in Confined Spaces, Reekie explores his sense of the ever-increasing restrictions we place upon ourselves.
In these pieces the artist uses an ‘Everyman
’ figure in the form of an archetypal glass head and a series of small ceramic
birds, to express his perception of our relationship with birds.
These small ceramic, mass produced birds, are familiar artifacts in our cultural landscape. Frequently found at car boot sale
s, they haunt the shelves of charity shop
s and the mantelpieces of old ladies who treasure them. The juxtappositon of these small birds alongside slightly unnerving, disembodied, glass heads,reminds us of the work of the surrealist René Magritte
, who often used everyday, familiar objects, placed in new contexts, to infuse the object with a new significance, while making us aware of its hidden ambiguities.
As the artist himself puts it, "through surreal uses of situation and perception. I have tried to illustrate aspects of human behaviour. Often I used ironic. sometimes macabre humour to make a point"
Birds have always had a certain place in our Mythology
and Literature
. In Ancient Egypt
, the God Thoth
has a bird's head (the head of an Ibis
). He is considered the ‘heart and tongue’ of Ra
, and the means by which Ra's will is translated into speech. An Augur
, or priest of Ancient Rome
, was said to be able to interpret ‘the will of the Gods’ by reading the behaviour of birds. While Native Americans
, renowned for their understanding of the natural world and their reverence for it, relied upon the Eagle
, to take their prayers to the Great Spirit. We need only remind ourselves of the recent devastation caused by Avian influenza to gain an appreciation what is at stake in our relationship with these small garden birds. It is symptomatic of our relationship with the natural world itself. As Mark Cocker
in his review of these pieces, writes:
In An Exchange of Information the distinct nature of the materials used for the different parts of the sculpture, appears to underpin the distance between human beings and birds in modern life.
The ceramic
birds used in these pieces are mass-produced and ‘made in Taiwan
, while the glass head is hand-crafted by the artist himself. The bird and the man survey one another, raising questions not simply about ourselves and the natural world, but about the relationship between Art itself and these Cultural artifact
s. We live in close proximity with these small creatures, who find their way into our homes and shared spaces and yet the distance between us appears unbridgeable. The work speaks on many levels. These latest pieces suggest an affinity with the work of William Morris
and his understanding of the part that methods of production
play in the conditions in which we find ourselves.
Besides the evident surreal humour
in these pieces, Reekie's work displays a sympathetic ‘self mockery’ and casts a sidelong, rather amused look back at itself. Like the artist himself, the pieces refer ironically to their own fragile existence in the modern world.
2008 Palm Beach3, US Thomas R Riley Galleries
Exchange of Information, Dan Klein Associates
Co[]etc V&A Museum, London
2007 Palm Beach3, US Thomas R Riley Galleries
Verriales 2007. Galerie Internationale Du Verre, Biot, France
2006 Palm Beach3 Contemporary, US. Thomas R Riley Galleries
2005 Talking to Strangers, One man show at Thomas R Riley galleries, Cleveland, Ohio
2005 21st Century British Glass, Danial Katz Gallier/ Dan Klein associates, DUAL VISION, The Simona and Jerome Chazen Collection,
Museum of Arts & Design, New York, SOFA New York, Thomas R Riley Galleries, The Art of Craft, Medici Gallery, London
Glass Collectors Weekend, Wheaton Village, New Jersey, Verriales 2005. Galerie Internationale du Verre, Biot, France
2004Palm Beach Contemporary, US. Thomas R Riley Galleries
The Human Condition. The Figure in British Art 1950-2002 Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery.
British Glass Biennale
2003 ArtForm, Palm Beach, US, Thomas R Riley Galleries
The 31st Annual International Glass Invitational, Habatat Galleries, Michigan, US.
SOFA 2003, New York, US, Thomas R Riley Galleries.
Verriales 2003. Galerie Internationale Du Verre, Biot, France
Glass Collectors Weekend, Wheaton Village, New Jersey, US, Thomas R Riley Galleries.
SOFA 2003, Chicago, US, Thomas R Riley Galleries.
2002 30th Annual International Glass Invitational, Habatat Galleries, Michigan US
2002 Palm Springs International Art Fair
2001 Cowdy Gallery, 31 Culver St, Newent, Gloucestershire.
2001 Millennium Glass Commissions, Broadfield Glass Museum, West Midlands.
2001 29th Annual International Invitational, Habatat Galleries, Michigan, US.
2001 David Reekie: Sculptor in Glass, Humour, Politics and the Human Condition at the Rotunda Gallery, Norwich Castle, Norwich, Norfolk.
2001 International Glass, Habatat Galleries, Millennium Museum, Beijing Shanghai Fine Arts Museum
2001 SOFA Chicago 2001, Navy Pier, Chicago, US.
2001 4th Hsin-Chu International Glass Art Festival and Symposium, Hsin-Chu Municipal Glass Museum, Hsin-Chu, Taiwan.1999 SOFA 99, New York, U.S.A
2000 SOFA 2000 New York, U.S.A
1999 Verriales 99, Galerie Internationale Du Verre, Biot, France.
1999 New Glass Economy,Shanghai Public Library, People's Republic of China.
1999 SOFA 99, Chicago, U.S.A.
1998 SOFA 98, New York, U.S.A.
1998 Jerwood Prize for Glass Exhibition, Crafts Council, London.
1998 SOFA 98, Chicago, U.S.A.1995 English Glass Art, Galerie Rob Van Den Doel, The Hague, Netherlands
1997 Hsinchu International Glass, Taiwan. 1990 British Glass, Williamson Museum, Liverpool
1996 William Morris Revisited, Questioning the Legacy, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester
1996 Verriales 96, Galerie Internationale Du Verre, Biot, France.
1996 Venezia Aperto Vetro, Ducal Palace, Venice.
1995 SOFA 95, Chicago, U.S.A.
1995 David Reekie,One Man Show, Miller Gallery, New York, U.S.A.
1995 Breaking Point, Alden Biesen, Belgium
1994 World Glass Now 94, Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art, Sapporo, Japan
1994 New Kilnformed Glass: Heller Gallery, Palm Beach,US 1984 Verre Contemporain en Europe, Galerie Paskine de Gignoux, Strasbourg, France
1993 The Glass Show, Crafts Council Gallery, London, England
1992 David Reekie, Galerie Suzel Berna, Antibes & Paris, France
1991 Cast Glass Invitational, Habatat Galleries, Boca Raton, Florida, U.S.A.
1991 David Reekie, Miller Gallery, New York
1991 International Glass Show, Marco Museo del Arte Contemporanio, Monterrey, Mexico & Museo Rufino Tamayo, Mexico
1991 La Verre, International Exhibition of Glass, Rouen, France
1990 18th International Glass Invitational, Habatat Galleries, Michigan, U.S.A.
1989 Form, Construction and Glass, Contact Gallery, Norwich
1989 Masterworks of Contemporary Glass, Christies, New York
1989 New Art Forms, Chicago International Art Exposition, U.S.A.
1988 International Exhibition of Glass Craft 88, Kanazawa, Japan
1988 British Contemporary Glass, Braggiotti Gallery, Rotterdam
1987 Stourbridge Glass 1854-1987, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
1987 Studio Glass Gallery of Great Britain, Montclair, New Jersey, U.S.A.
1985 Studio Glass, British Crafts Centre, London 1987 Glass Art, Museum of Art, San Paulo, Brazil
1984 New Glasswork from Britain, Essener Glasgalerie, Essen, Germany
1984 Studio Glass since 1945, Royal Pavilion Art Gallery & Museum, Brighton
1983 British Glass Artists, Glass Art Gallery, Toronto, Canada
1983 David Reekie & Jim Roddis, Het Glashuis, Alkmaar, Netherlands
1981 New Glass, Victoria & New Albert Museum, London
1979 Glass Now, Portsmouth Museum and Art Gallery
1979 British Artists in Glass, Galerie SM, Frankfurt, Germany
1978 Six Modern Glassmakers, Dudley Art Gallery
1977 Glass Constructions, Usher Gallery, Lincoln
1977 British Artists in Glass, British Crafts Centre, London
1973 Glass & Ceramics, Dudley Art Gallery
1971 New Dimensions 71, Camden Arts Centre, London
1970 Manufactured Art, Camden Arts Centre, London
Small Cast Heads 1977
Portsmouth Museum & Art Gallery
Construction No. 3 1978
Broadfield House Glass Museum, Kingswinford,West Midlands
Construction with Guarding Figures 1978
Struggling Man 1984,
A Human Oddity 2001
Usher Art Gallery, Lincoln
Cast Glass Construction 1980
Pilkington Glass Museum, St Helens
Strange Offering II 1986
Man With a Wheel 1990
Glasmuseet Ebeltoft
, Denmark
Strange Offering IV 1987
Norwich Castle Museum, Contemporary Glass Collection
Spring Return 1988
Liberty Museum, Philadelphia, US
Which Way? 1990
Carnegie Museum of Art
, Pittsburgh,US
Greek Head III 1993
Victoria & Albert Museum, London Contemporary Glass Collection
Greek Head V 1994
Captive Audience 2000
Birmingham City Art Gallery
Living in Confined Spaces II 1998
Musee-Atelier du Verre de Sars Poteries, France
Living in Confined Spaces III 1998
Tutsek Foundation, Munich, Germany
Someone Else's Body II
Shipley Art Gallery & Museum
Sitting on the Fence II 2003
Drawing
Drawing is a form of visual art that makes use of any number of drawing instruments to mark a two-dimensional medium. Common instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoal, chalk, pastels, markers, styluses, and various metals .An artist who...
and glass casting
Glass casting
Glass casting is the process in which glass objects are cast by directing molten glass into a mould where it solidifies. The technique has been used since the Egyptian period...
to express his unique vision of the human condition
Human condition
The human condition encompasses the experiences of being human in a social, cultural, and personal context. It can be described as the irreducible part of humanity that is inherent and not connected to gender, race, class, etc. — a search for purpose, sense of curiosity, the inevitability of...
. His art can be found in the Victoria and Albert Museum
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum , set in the Brompton district of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects...
in London and the Carnegie Museum of Art
Carnegie Museum of Art
The Carnegie Museum of Art, located in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is an art museum founded in 1895 by the Pittsburgh-based industrialist Andrew Carnegie...
in Pittsburgh, as well as in several other public collections in the United Kingdom.
A founding member of British Artists in Glass, now the Contemporary Glass Society
Contemporary Glass Society
The Contemporary Glass Society is an association of artists, collectors, students, writers, organisations, academics, galleries, manufacturers and enthusiasts of Glass...
, Reekie's work has featured in countless periodicals and in over 60 exhibits worldwide.
Background and education
Born in the London Borough of HackneyLondon Borough of Hackney
The London Borough of Hackney is a London borough of North/North East London, and forms part of inner London. The local authority is Hackney London Borough Council....
(1947), David Reekie discovered an early love of drawing
Drawing
Drawing is a form of visual art that makes use of any number of drawing instruments to mark a two-dimensional medium. Common instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoal, chalk, pastels, markers, styluses, and various metals .An artist who...
that has remained central to his life and work for well over four decades. Distinguished by his talent with a pencil and an active perceptive faculty he was encouraged to attend Art College.
Reekie studied Art at Stourbridge
Stourbridge
Stourbridge is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley, in the West Midlands of England. Historically part of Worcestershire, Stourbridge was a centre of glass making, and today includes the suburbs of Amblecote, Lye, Norton, Oldswinford, Pedmore, Wollaston, Wollescote and Wordsley The...
College of Art (1967–1970). Set in the heart of the UK's traditional glass making industry, Stourbridge College of Art was a natural place of innovation and discovery in the world of Glass art
Glass art
Studio glass or glass sculpture is the modern use of glass as an artistic medium to produce sculptures or three-dimensional artworks. Specific approaches include working glass at room temperature cold working, stained glass, working glass in a torch flame , glass beadmaking, glass casting, glass...
. What is thought to be the only complete remaining Glass Cone of its kind, reaching 100 ft into the air and enclosing a furnace
Furnace
A furnace is a device used for heating. The name derives from Latin fornax, oven.In American English and Canadian English, the term furnace on its own is generally used to describe household heating systems based on a central furnace , and sometimes as a synonym for kiln, a device used in the...
around which glass has been made for almost two centuries, the Red House Cone
Red House Cone
The Red House Cone is located in Wordsley in the West Midlands, adjacent to the Stourbridge Canal bridge on the A491 High Street. It is a high conical brick structure with a diameter of , used for the production of glass. It was used by the Stuart Crystal firm till 1936, when the company moved to...
, dominates the landscape.
At Stourbridge
Stourbridge
Stourbridge is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley, in the West Midlands of England. Historically part of Worcestershire, Stourbridge was a centre of glass making, and today includes the suburbs of Amblecote, Lye, Norton, Oldswinford, Pedmore, Wollaston, Wollescote and Wordsley The...
, Reekie studied under the pioneering glass sculptor Harry Seager whose plate glass stacking pieces, were ahead of his time. He also drew inspiration from Professor Keith Cummings commonly known as the father of English cast glass. A pioneer of Cire perdue, or the lost wax casting
Lost wax casting
Lost-wax casting sometimes called by the French name of cire perdue is the process by which a metal sculpture is cast from an artist's sculpture. Intricate works can be achieved by this method, primarily depending on the carver's skills...
technique, Professor Cummings is an internationally recognized glass artist and author of a number of books on the subject. Reekie went on to study at Birmingham College of Art Education, eventually obtaining a Fellowship in Glass at Lincolnshire and Humberside Arts (1975–1980).
In 1976 Reekie was part of a group of glass artists who founded British Artist's in Glass, now the Contemporary Glass Society
Contemporary Glass Society
The Contemporary Glass Society is an association of artists, collectors, students, writers, organisations, academics, galleries, manufacturers and enthusiasts of Glass...
This organisation was partly instrumental in bringing Reekie's work international recognition.
In 1988, he was awarded a Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
Travel Fellowship to research glass in Architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
in the US. His work is currently shown in America by Thomas R.Riley Galleries, Cleveland, Ohio. Reekie has lectured extensively on glass sculpture and his own casting technique, in the UK Europe, US and Australia.
Modus Operandi
An innovator both artistically and technically in the field, Reekie's work more often than not, begins on the page with a sketch or a drawing. These drawings are surreal in character and similar in attitude to the humorist John TennielJohn Tenniel
Sir John Tenniel was a British illustrator, graphic humorist and political cartoonist whose work was prominent during the second half of England’s 19th century. Tenniel is considered important to the study of that period’s social, literary, and art histories...
,who worked first for Punch magazine and later collaborated with Lewis Carroll
Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...
in producing the illustrations for Alice in Wonderland.
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum , set in the Brompton district of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects...
puts is:
"Unlike many of his contemporaries, the intrinsic beauty of glass holds little fascination for Reekie; in his work the material must be pressed into the service of narrative and comment. His telling explorations of humankind's obsessions are unique in contemporary British glass and they tread a fine between comedy and tragedy"
This combination of pictorial satirist and skilled craftsman, places Reekie's work in the tradition of the London born painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
, engraver and social critic, William Hogarth
William Hogarth
William Hogarth was an English painter, printmaker, pictorial satirist, social critic and editorial cartoonist who has been credited with pioneering western sequential art. His work ranged from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like series of pictures called "modern moral subjects"...
Engraving
Engraving is the practice of incising a design on to a hard, usually flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing...
s. A Londoner himself, Reekie states that one of the sources of his inspiration is newspaper photographs. The penny dreadful
Penny Dreadful
A penny dreadful was a type of British fiction publication in the 19th century that usually featured lurid serial stories appearing in parts over a number of weeks, each part costing an penny...
s of today perhaps providing a ready source of images and stories, revealing the often absurd nature of our relationships with one another and political life.
Reekie's drawings also share certain qualities with those of the French caricaturist Honoré Daumier
Honoré Daumier
Honoré Daumier was a French printmaker, caricaturist, painter, and sculptor, whose many works offer commentary on social and political life in France in the 19th century....
. The chequered shirt in Reekie's Different People may well be an implicit reference to the influence of Daumier on his Art.
While these drawings are the means by which Reekie initially expresses his ideas, what makes them unique among his fore-runners, is that they are given three-dimensional form in coloured, cast glass.
Method
An early enthusiast of cast glass, Reekie has developed his own distinct version of the lost wax castingLost wax casting
Lost-wax casting sometimes called by the French name of cire perdue is the process by which a metal sculpture is cast from an artist's sculpture. Intricate works can be achieved by this method, primarily depending on the carver's skills...
method. The lost wax process can be traced back to the Romans
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
and involves creating a wax model which is then encased in a casting material and steamed out.
The piece is modelled first in wax
Wax
thumb|right|[[Cetyl palmitate]], a typical wax ester.Wax refers to a class of chemical compounds that are plastic near ambient temperatures. Characteristically, they melt above 45 °C to give a low viscosity liquid. Waxes are insoluble in water but soluble in organic, nonpolar solvents...
with the base being moulded out of clay
Clay
Clay is a general term including many combinations of one or more clay minerals with traces of metal oxides and organic matter. Geologic clay deposits are mostly composed of phyllosilicate minerals containing variable amounts of water trapped in the mineral structure.- Formation :Clay minerals...
. The modelling is a gradual process that takes about two weeks.
Plaster
Plaster is a building material used for coating walls and ceilings. Plaster starts as a dry powder similar to mortar or cement and like those materials it is mixed with water to form a paste which liberates heat and then hardens. Unlike mortar and cement, plaster remains quite soft after setting,...
and flint
Flint
Flint is a hard, sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as a variety of chert. It occurs chiefly as nodules and masses in sedimentary rocks, such as chalks and limestones. Inside the nodule, flint is usually dark grey, black, green, white, or brown in colour, and...
mould. As soon as the mould is dry, the clay is gently removed and the wax model is steamed out. The mould is now ready to be filled with glass cullet.
Whilst the mould is still damp, Reekie paints the inside surfaces with vitreous enamel
Vitreous enamel
Vitreous enamel, also porcelain enamel in U.S. English, is a material made by fusing powdered glass to a substrate by firing, usually between 750 and 850 °C...
which gives the glass the kind of ‘painterly quality’ that characterises his drawings: a technique perfected over many years. In this way the colour is transferred to the three dimensional glass sculpture. A displacement test, using a bucket of water in the manner of Archimedes
Archimedes
Archimedes of Syracuse was a Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer. Although few details of his life are known, he is regarded as one of the leading scientists in classical antiquity. Among his advances in physics are the foundations of hydrostatics, statics and an...
, is used to measure the quantity of glass needed. The mould is then filled with cullet and transferred to a kiln
Kiln
A kiln is a thermally insulated chamber, or oven, in which a controlled temperature regime is produced. Uses include the hardening, burning or drying of materials...
.
The kiln firing programme takes about ten days. During the first 24 hours of the firing programme, more glass is added as the cullet melts down. After 48 hours the glass will have melted and there is nothing to do but wait for the firing cycle to run its course. The cooling or Annealing
Annealing (glass)
Annealing is a process of slowly cooling glass to relieve internal stresses after it was formed. The process may be carried out in a temperature-controlled kiln known as a Lehr. Glass which has not been annealed is liable to crack or shatter when subjected to a relatively small temperature change...
process, takes about a week. The mould can then be carefully removed, using wooden tools. When cold the glass is ground and polished with diamond tools
Diamond tools
A diamond tool is a cutting tool with diamond grains fixed on the functional parts of the tool via a bonding material or another method. As diamond is a superhard material, diamond tools have many advantages as compared with tools made with common abrasives such as corundum and silicon...
.
Themes
A central theme of Reekie's work is the threat that modern life poses to our individuality and to the natural world. Much of his work is Kafkaesque in its perception of the powerful, anonymous forces that try to shape us; and our ability (or lack of it) to either adapt to them or escape them.His expression of this is often satirically humorous, see for example the Robot Series in the Gallery below. Reekie states that this series was partly inspired by his childhood memories of watching Forbidden Planet
Forbidden Planet
Forbidden Planet is a 1956 science fiction film directed by Fred M. Wilcox, with a screenplay by Cyril Hume. It stars Leslie Nielsen, Walter Pidgeon, and Anne Francis. The characters and its setting have been compared to those in William Shakespeare's The Tempest, and its plot contains certain...
and Robbie the Robot in the 1950s. Before the appearance of Robby, robots in movies and plays tended to lack personality characteristics, being simple mechanical devices. The artist suggests that his pieces are created to question our own, often robotic or mindless behaviour. Indeed, human stupidity is a recurrent theme of Reekie's work.
Mechanical
Mechanical may refer to:* Mechanical engineering, a branch of engineering concerned with the application of physical mechanics* HVAC , the mechanical systems of a building...
and unimaginative responses to the conditions we find ourselves in, as it is to developing technologies. In some sense our adaptability may well be our undoing. The title of the Robot Series, can be understood as a humorous take on Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000...
's Robot Series
Isaac Asimov's Robot Series
Isaac Asimov's Robot Series is a series of short stories and novels by Isaac Asimov featuring positronic robots.- Short stories :Most of Asimov's robot short stories are set in the first age of positronic robotics and space exploration...
- and the Three Laws of Robotics
Three Laws of Robotics
The Three Laws of Robotics are a set of rules devised by the science fiction author Isaac Asimov and later added to. The rules are introduced in his 1942 short story "Runaround", although they were foreshadowed in a few earlier stories...
may well feature. Another work by the artist, expressing the same themes is ‘The Engineers’.
Israeli-Palestinian conflict
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is the ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The conflict is wide-ranging, and the term is also used in reference to the earlier phases of the same conflict, between Jewish and Zionist yishuv and the Arab population living in Palestine under Ottoman or...
" and that it shows his own frustration about people's stubbornness and inability to get along. More often than not however, he is concerned with questions that relate to the human condition
Human condition
The human condition encompasses the experiences of being human in a social, cultural, and personal context. It can be described as the irreducible part of humanity that is inherent and not connected to gender, race, class, etc. — a search for purpose, sense of curiosity, the inevitability of...
generally:
"My work is influenced by our reaction and adaptation to the society that surrounds us. We live in a world that grows more complex and difficult to comprehend. It has tensions and temptations that pull us in different directions. This creates characters and situations that provide a constant source of material from which I take my ideas",
In A Captive Audience (a work commissioned by the Victoria and Albert Museum
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum , set in the Brompton district of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects...
) the text accompanying the piece described it in the following terms:
A band of naked figures stands rooted to the spot, each the cloneCloningCloning in biology is the process of producing similar populations of genetically identical individuals that occurs in nature when organisms such as bacteria, insects or plants reproduce asexually. Cloning in biotechnology refers to processes used to create copies of DNA fragments , cells , or...
of his neighbour, each indistinguishable from his neighbour, all hemmed in by a barrier and trapped on a confining platform. Seven of the figures face forward, but the eighth, at the back and unseen by his companions, has turned his head. He looks outside the barrier, perhaps hoping for a world with fewer rules and restrictions."
In a series of sculptures entitled Living in Confined Spaces, Reekie explores his sense of the ever-increasing restrictions we place upon ourselves.
The food we eat, the way we think, our notions of physical and political space are all in some ways becoming more limited…..At the same time, these pieces also illustrate how humans can rise above their limited and shrinking world and somehow manage to find ways of making their predicament more tolerable'.
An Exchange of Information
Reekie's latest work can be found in a solo exhibition, hosted by Dan Klein Associates. The exhibition is entitled, An Exchange of Information.In these pieces the artist uses an ‘Everyman
Everyman
In literature and drama, the term everyman has come to mean an ordinary individual, with whom the audience or reader is supposed to be able to identify easily, and who is often placed in extraordinary circumstances...
’ figure in the form of an archetypal glass head and a series of small ceramic
Ceramic
A ceramic is an inorganic, nonmetallic solid prepared by the action of heat and subsequent cooling. Ceramic materials may have a crystalline or partly crystalline structure, or may be amorphous...
birds, to express his perception of our relationship with birds.
These small ceramic, mass produced birds, are familiar artifacts in our cultural landscape. Frequently found at car boot sale
Car boot sale
Car boot/trunk sales or boot/trunk fairs are a mainly British form of market in which private individuals come together to sell household and garden goods.The term refers to the selling of items from a car's boot or trunk...
s, they haunt the shelves of charity shop
Charity shop
A charity shop, thrift shop, thrift store, hospice shop , resale shop or op shop is a retail establishment run by a charitable organization to raise money.Charity shops are a type of social enterprise...
s and the mantelpieces of old ladies who treasure them. The juxtappositon of these small birds alongside slightly unnerving, disembodied, glass heads,reminds us of the work of the surrealist René Magritte
René Magritte
René François Ghislain Magritte[p] was a Belgian surrealist artist. He became well known for a number of witty and thought-provoking images...
, who often used everyday, familiar objects, placed in new contexts, to infuse the object with a new significance, while making us aware of its hidden ambiguities.
As the artist himself puts it, "through surreal uses of situation and perception. I have tried to illustrate aspects of human behaviour. Often I used ironic. sometimes macabre humour to make a point"
Mythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
and Literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
. In Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
, the God Thoth
Thoth
Thoth was considered one of the more important deities of the Egyptian pantheon. In art, he was often depicted as a man with the head of an ibis or a baboon, animals sacred to him. His feminine counterpart was Seshat...
has a bird's head (the head of an Ibis
Ibis
The ibises are a group of long-legged wading birds in the family Threskiornithidae....
). He is considered the ‘heart and tongue’ of Ra
Ra
Ra is the ancient Egyptian sun god. By the Fifth Dynasty he had become a major deity in ancient Egyptian religion, identified primarily with the mid-day sun...
, and the means by which Ra's will is translated into speech. An Augur
Augur
The augur was a priest and official in the classical world, especially ancient Rome and Etruria. His main role was to interpret the will of the gods by studying the flight of birds: whether they are flying in groups/alone, what noises they make as they fly, direction of flight and what kind of...
, or priest of Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
, was said to be able to interpret ‘the will of the Gods’ by reading the behaviour of birds. While Native Americans
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
, renowned for their understanding of the natural world and their reverence for it, relied upon the Eagle
Eagle
Eagles are members of the bird family Accipitridae, and belong to several genera which are not necessarily closely related to each other. Most of the more than 60 species occur in Eurasia and Africa. Outside this area, just two species can be found in the United States and Canada, nine more in...
, to take their prayers to the Great Spirit. We need only remind ourselves of the recent devastation caused by Avian influenza to gain an appreciation what is at stake in our relationship with these small garden birds. It is symptomatic of our relationship with the natural world itself. As Mark Cocker
Mark Cocker
Mark Cocker is a British author and naturalist. He lives and works deep in the Norfolk countryside with his wife Mary Muir and two daughters in claxton...
in his review of these pieces, writes:
It may seem absurd today. But perhaps we should reflect that in 1997 the Labour government offered a series of indices to measure the quality of life in this country. One of those yardsticks for the good life in Britain was bird populations. We are all now familiar how birds act as indicators for the quality of our environment. The owlOwlOwls are a group of birds that belong to the order Strigiformes, constituting 200 bird of prey species. Most are solitary and nocturnal, with some exceptions . Owls hunt mostly small mammals, insects, and other birds, although a few species specialize in hunting fish...
, whose cry pierces the darkness, or the kestrelKestrelThe name kestrel, is given to several different members of the falcon genus, Falco. Kestrels are most easily distinguished by their typical hunting behaviour which is to hover at a height of around over open country and swoop down on prey, usually small mammals, lizards or large insects...
which wrestles the wind to a standstill at the motorway verge, will only survive if the trees, the insects, the other animals, the flowers and the countryside itself are all present and correct.
In An Exchange of Information the distinct nature of the materials used for the different parts of the sculpture, appears to underpin the distance between human beings and birds in modern life.
The ceramic
Ceramic
A ceramic is an inorganic, nonmetallic solid prepared by the action of heat and subsequent cooling. Ceramic materials may have a crystalline or partly crystalline structure, or may be amorphous...
birds used in these pieces are mass-produced and ‘made in Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
, while the glass head is hand-crafted by the artist himself. The bird and the man survey one another, raising questions not simply about ourselves and the natural world, but about the relationship between Art itself and these Cultural artifact
Cultural artifact
A cultural artifact is a term used in the social sciences, particularly anthropology, ethnology, and sociology for anything created by humans which gives information about the culture of its creator and users...
s. We live in close proximity with these small creatures, who find their way into our homes and shared spaces and yet the distance between us appears unbridgeable. The work speaks on many levels. These latest pieces suggest an affinity with the work of William Morris
William Morris
William Morris 24 March 18343 October 1896 was an English textile designer, artist, writer, and socialist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement...
and his understanding of the part that methods of production
Methods of Production
Production methods fall into three main categories; however, all production methods can be assisted with CAM and CAD equipment .-Job Production and Prototype Production:...
play in the conditions in which we find ourselves.
Besides the evident surreal humour
Surreal humour
Surreal humour is a form of humour based on violations of causal reasoning with events and behaviours that are logically incongruent. Constructions of surreal humour involve bizarre juxtapositions, non-sequiturs, irrational situations, and/or expressions of nonsense.The humour arises from a...
in these pieces, Reekie's work displays a sympathetic ‘self mockery’ and casts a sidelong, rather amused look back at itself. Like the artist himself, the pieces refer ironically to their own fragile existence in the modern world.
Exhibitions
2008 'Myths and Legends', Contemporary Applied Arts, St Percy St, London.2008 Palm Beach3, US Thomas R Riley Galleries
Exchange of Information, Dan Klein Associates
Co[]etc V&A Museum, London
2007 Palm Beach3, US Thomas R Riley Galleries
Verriales 2007. Galerie Internationale Du Verre, Biot, France
2006 Palm Beach3 Contemporary, US. Thomas R Riley Galleries
2005 Talking to Strangers, One man show at Thomas R Riley galleries, Cleveland, Ohio
2005 21st Century British Glass, Danial Katz Gallier/ Dan Klein associates, DUAL VISION, The Simona and Jerome Chazen Collection,
Museum of Arts & Design, New York, SOFA New York, Thomas R Riley Galleries, The Art of Craft, Medici Gallery, London
Glass Collectors Weekend, Wheaton Village, New Jersey, Verriales 2005. Galerie Internationale du Verre, Biot, France
2004Palm Beach Contemporary, US. Thomas R Riley Galleries
The Human Condition. The Figure in British Art 1950-2002 Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery.
British Glass Biennale
2003 ArtForm, Palm Beach, US, Thomas R Riley Galleries
The 31st Annual International Glass Invitational, Habatat Galleries, Michigan, US.
SOFA 2003, New York, US, Thomas R Riley Galleries.
Verriales 2003. Galerie Internationale Du Verre, Biot, France
Glass Collectors Weekend, Wheaton Village, New Jersey, US, Thomas R Riley Galleries.
SOFA 2003, Chicago, US, Thomas R Riley Galleries.
2002 30th Annual International Glass Invitational, Habatat Galleries, Michigan US
2002 Palm Springs International Art Fair
2001 Cowdy Gallery, 31 Culver St, Newent, Gloucestershire.
2001 Millennium Glass Commissions, Broadfield Glass Museum, West Midlands.
2001 29th Annual International Invitational, Habatat Galleries, Michigan, US.
2001 David Reekie: Sculptor in Glass, Humour, Politics and the Human Condition at the Rotunda Gallery, Norwich Castle, Norwich, Norfolk.
2001 International Glass, Habatat Galleries, Millennium Museum, Beijing Shanghai Fine Arts Museum
2001 SOFA Chicago 2001, Navy Pier, Chicago, US.
2001 4th Hsin-Chu International Glass Art Festival and Symposium, Hsin-Chu Municipal Glass Museum, Hsin-Chu, Taiwan.1999 SOFA 99, New York, U.S.A
2000 SOFA 2000 New York, U.S.A
1999 Verriales 99, Galerie Internationale Du Verre, Biot, France.
1999 New Glass Economy,Shanghai Public Library, People's Republic of China.
1999 SOFA 99, Chicago, U.S.A.
1998 SOFA 98, New York, U.S.A.
1998 Jerwood Prize for Glass Exhibition, Crafts Council, London.
1998 SOFA 98, Chicago, U.S.A.1995 English Glass Art, Galerie Rob Van Den Doel, The Hague, Netherlands
1997 Hsinchu International Glass, Taiwan. 1990 British Glass, Williamson Museum, Liverpool
1996 William Morris Revisited, Questioning the Legacy, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester
1996 Verriales 96, Galerie Internationale Du Verre, Biot, France.
1996 Venezia Aperto Vetro, Ducal Palace, Venice.
1995 SOFA 95, Chicago, U.S.A.
1995 David Reekie,One Man Show, Miller Gallery, New York, U.S.A.
1995 Breaking Point, Alden Biesen, Belgium
1994 World Glass Now 94, Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art, Sapporo, Japan
1994 New Kilnformed Glass: Heller Gallery, Palm Beach,US 1984 Verre Contemporain en Europe, Galerie Paskine de Gignoux, Strasbourg, France
1993 The Glass Show, Crafts Council Gallery, London, England
1992 David Reekie, Galerie Suzel Berna, Antibes & Paris, France
1991 Cast Glass Invitational, Habatat Galleries, Boca Raton, Florida, U.S.A.
1991 David Reekie, Miller Gallery, New York
1991 International Glass Show, Marco Museo del Arte Contemporanio, Monterrey, Mexico & Museo Rufino Tamayo, Mexico
1991 La Verre, International Exhibition of Glass, Rouen, France
1990 18th International Glass Invitational, Habatat Galleries, Michigan, U.S.A.
1989 Form, Construction and Glass, Contact Gallery, Norwich
1989 Masterworks of Contemporary Glass, Christies, New York
1989 New Art Forms, Chicago International Art Exposition, U.S.A.
1988 International Exhibition of Glass Craft 88, Kanazawa, Japan
1988 British Contemporary Glass, Braggiotti Gallery, Rotterdam
1987 Stourbridge Glass 1854-1987, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
1987 Studio Glass Gallery of Great Britain, Montclair, New Jersey, U.S.A.
1985 Studio Glass, British Crafts Centre, London 1987 Glass Art, Museum of Art, San Paulo, Brazil
1984 New Glasswork from Britain, Essener Glasgalerie, Essen, Germany
1984 Studio Glass since 1945, Royal Pavilion Art Gallery & Museum, Brighton
1983 British Glass Artists, Glass Art Gallery, Toronto, Canada
1983 David Reekie & Jim Roddis, Het Glashuis, Alkmaar, Netherlands
1981 New Glass, Victoria & New Albert Museum, London
1979 Glass Now, Portsmouth Museum and Art Gallery
1979 British Artists in Glass, Galerie SM, Frankfurt, Germany
1978 Six Modern Glassmakers, Dudley Art Gallery
1977 Glass Constructions, Usher Gallery, Lincoln
1977 British Artists in Glass, British Crafts Centre, London
1973 Glass & Ceramics, Dudley Art Gallery
1971 New Dimensions 71, Camden Arts Centre, London
1970 Manufactured Art, Camden Arts Centre, London
Work in Museums
Manchester City Art GallerySmall Cast Heads 1977
Portsmouth Museum & Art Gallery
Construction No. 3 1978
Broadfield House Glass Museum, Kingswinford,West Midlands
Construction with Guarding Figures 1978
Struggling Man 1984,
A Human Oddity 2001
Usher Art Gallery, Lincoln
Cast Glass Construction 1980
Pilkington Glass Museum, St Helens
Strange Offering II 1986
Man With a Wheel 1990
Glasmuseet Ebeltoft
Glasmuseet Ebeltoft
Located in Ebeltoft, Denmark, Glasmuseet Ebeltoft is a museum dedicated to the exhibition and collection of contemporary glass art worldwide. Its mission is to educate a broad audience in the appreciation of glass as an art form.-Establishment:...
, Denmark
Strange Offering IV 1987
Norwich Castle Museum, Contemporary Glass Collection
Spring Return 1988
Liberty Museum, Philadelphia, US
Which Way? 1990
Carnegie Museum of Art
Carnegie Museum of Art
The Carnegie Museum of Art, located in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is an art museum founded in 1895 by the Pittsburgh-based industrialist Andrew Carnegie...
, Pittsburgh,US
Greek Head III 1993
Victoria & Albert Museum, London Contemporary Glass Collection
Greek Head V 1994
Captive Audience 2000
Birmingham City Art Gallery
Living in Confined Spaces II 1998
Musee-Atelier du Verre de Sars Poteries, France
Living in Confined Spaces III 1998
Tutsek Foundation, Munich, Germany
Someone Else's Body II
Shipley Art Gallery & Museum
Sitting on the Fence II 2003