Andy Paiko

“My career as a glass artist began unexpectedly, yet has evolved as a function of my personality. Glass has become my primary voice, my way of communicating experience, and my creative focus. Each piece could be metaphorical; it could comment on the difficulty of decision-making in everyday life, the relationship of society with nature or language, or the way the mind grasps experience through dreams.

“The glassblowing process is an additive one, much like our personalities. Rather than a form emerging from a block of solid stone reductively, forms of glass are pushed into space organically by a cumulative history of layering and motion. My object-making process has developed to extend this layering, whereby many separate, individual glass parts are fused cold, away from the furnace to form a collage of sorts. This allows for a degree of detail and complexity difficult to achieve on the end of a blowpipe.” – Andy Paiko

Glass artist, Andy Paiko, graduated from the studio art program at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, and is known for ambitious, technical works, which explore the metaphorical and symbolic tension of form versus function. In 2012, Andy was selected for the prestigious show 40 Under 40: Craft Futures, at the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. His recent exhibitions include the Museum of Contemporary Craft, Portland, OR; the Wichita Museum of Art, KS; and the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, MA. He received a Louis Comfort Tiffany Biennial Award in 2016, and a Pilchuck Glass School Scholarship in 2017. His work has been featured in national and international print publications such as American Craft, Hi-Fructose, and the Corning Museum’s New Glass Review. Paiko currently resides in the Pacific Northwest, where he continues to study new methods of coloration, patterning, and form, including everything from vessel-ware and assembled sculpture to installation and custom design.

Submitted by Momentum Gallery