Sharp Places | Carissa Baktay

About

Hundreds of meters of glass thread and horse hair wound around objects reminiscent of childhood activities; a ball, cat’s cradle, a roll of yarn, structures referencing forts and fabric. These forms are not exact replicas but are memories of the objects, intuitive translations. Floating seemingly weightlessly in space, this draws attention to materiality, and by approximation, immateriality. Texture, line and weight are tools used to embody personal narratives.
Through an intuitive gathering of raw materials that then takes shape through the repetition of countless small, precise actions that together form a process, these works visit past actions and the satisfaction found in their repetition until mastery. The innocent delight in washing and perfectly combing hair, simple symbolic items carefully arranged, Sharp Places seeks to restore the connection between people and their intuitive relationship to nostalgically charged objects.

Carissa Baktay is a sculptor currently living and working between Canada and Iceland.  Working with glass since 2008, Carissa earned a BFA from the Alberta University of Art, studied at The Rhode Island School of Design and received a Master of Glass Art and Science from VICARTE in Lisbon, Portugal.  An instinctual maker, her contemplative process-based work is an attempt to understand and to make physical her memories and dreamscapes.  Combining laser cutting, wool spinning and glass making techniques, her work is a journey towards emotional honesty through the process of making as a means of discovery. Using alternative technologies and mediums combined with time honoured glass making methods, she has been invited as Artist in Residence at glass studios in Iceland, Norway, Finland and Canada while focusing on her experimental studio practice.

www.carissabaktay.com