Artist Spotlight Andrea da Ponte

artist spotlight
Andrea da Ponte

share your creative practice:
in conversation with Andrea da ponte

What influences translate into your art practice?

I feel influenced directly by our specie… humans. The will of organizing the space we occupie. The being, recognizing where we belong, where we are and where we are heading. The relationship we stablish as a society with the space we inhabit and it inhabit us. The interaction with the material and the spiritual. The constant passing of time, its prints between the real present and the infinit and intangible.

Has this changed the way you approach your work?

Since my begginings I felt a great attraction for generating defined lectures in and out of glass volumes, exploring its multiple lectures throught different tecniques. The round shapes that refer to a path without beggining or ending. The concave and convex, increasing and decreasing an image depending where we stand as viewers

What initially captured your imagination about glass?

I came across glass in a casual way, working as administrator in a window glass store. It was love at first sight, it fascinated me to modify matter throught temperature, its fragility and transparency relates directly to my artistic language. Trying to contain it, delimit it, and it’s magical way of overflowing, it’s movement dance between gravity and its mass. To understand it chemically and physically.

What’s the significance of the handmade to you?

The handmade captures my emotions, leaves a print on the traveled paths to get to make our ideas happen, generating a deep connection with the viewer. To shape our expression throught sensory, throught touch.

Objects last throw time telling our story.

What was your route to becoming an artist?

The artistic side of me came across with my passion for teaching. I am a Artistic Glass Technician and as soon as I graduated I began teaching classes. Initially my work was a communication channel with my students. I will never forget the extreme sensation I felt when my first piece was featured on the National Glass Salon. Then I participated on fine arts salons where glass is considered an important material for artistic expression.

The selection of my work for New Glass Now of Corning Museum of Glass was a real milestone in my career, the local media helped on spreading my work on Argentina and the region. This allowed me to be visible on forgein countries.

What is your chosen medium and what are your techniques?

I select the techniques according to my needs of expression adapting them to the material behavior. Blown glass, kilngastinglass, pate de verre, always related to image transfer. I usually use iron straps and throught the interaction of the two materials I acomplish my language. This got mne to an extensive research of both materials. The cold work finishes revealing the internal readings.

How would you describe your work and where do you think it fits within the sphere of contemporary glass?

I use the physical characteristics of glass to talk about a timeless world on constant movement and relate it to an iron containment. Two opposite materials on both transparency and fragility. I think the narrative of my pieces expresses different kinds of lectures, it leaves a part open for interpretation of the viewer.

Tell us a bit about your process and what environment you like to work in?

Research was a fundamental pillar to relating myself with glass. The searching for a clearly defined image became the motor for adapting techniques and searching for better ways to execute them. This got me to create an experimental method of digital image transfer to glass that can adapt to multiple materials and techniques on glass and ceramics. This method is now used by artists and students all around the world. There is a lack of resources on material and infrastucture in my country. The creative process begins in my mind and continues on my studio for several months until the definitive execution of the piece.

I create the blown pieces on glass factorys since there are not any artistic blown glass workshops on Argentina. I think the glass communityis great sharing information and promoting artists.

Who do you look up to when it comes to aesthetics?

I admire Kiki Smith, Karen LaMonte and Bertil Vallien aesthetics.

What currently inspires you and which other artists do you admire and why?

Nowadays i’m working on a new instalation inspired on what holds us as a planet, the human conection with the uniserve, infinity and timelessness.

I admire my teacher and mentor Silvia Levenson for her social commitment througth her work, for making visible women rights, gender and domestic violence. I had the honor of collaborating in her exposition “Missing Identity” on Riga Letonia’s ghetto.

Myriam Di Fiore for her exquisite language expressing what sorrounds her, with the perfection of her intense technical search through the years.

Both argentinian artists have marked a path for latin americans.

I also admire the work of Martin Janecky, Michael Rogers, Tim Tate, Norwood Viviano, Jeffrey Sarmiento and Dustin Yellin.

Andrea da ponte

Andrea da Ponte is a South American artist, Born in Avellaneda, Buenos Aires (Argentina) where she still lives and works today. In her work da Ponte, uses the physical characteristics of glass and accomplished image transfer techniques to explore and challenge our expansionist relationship with geography and the human necessity to know where we are.

Andrea da Pontes piece “Globalizado” was part of “New Glass Now 2019” at the Corning Museum of and is now held as part of the permanent collection.

As an artist and Artistic Glass Technician at Escuela Municipal de Vidrio Berazategui, da Ponte is passionate about teaching and shares her knowledge with students from all around Argentina, creating new spaces of communication and experimentation of the newly developed methods