Exhibition combining ancient and modern techniques opens at Sunderland's National Glass Centre

Constructions, a solo exhibition by Jeffrey Sarmiento, will be on display at the University of Sunderland’s National Glass Centre until January 2014.

The exhibition combines digital design, waterjet cutting, silkscreen printing, kiln forming, hand-carving and polishing to create unique built objects from glass.

The artworks include “portraits” from the Philippines to the North-East, covered in tiny glass lenses, a thick glass Encylopaedia of sketches, photographs, text, and patterns.

Other works include a scale model of a rope factory that spans the length of the gallery, and a reworking of a disused Norwegian greenhouse, in which the flaws in the glass are the starting point for an installation about seeking beauty in imperfection.

Jeffrey Sarmiento’s work has taken him all over Europe and the USA as an artist and academic. His travels have inspired a fascination with local buildings, and their meanings.

Mr Sarmiento, a Filipino-American, now based at National Glass Centre, said: “My work is an exploration of culture from the perspective of a perpetual foreigner.

“I attempt to draw meaning beyond what is initially visible, using social history, biography - of people, objects and buildings - anecdotes and fiction.

“With glass it is the material that manipulates ways of seeing. I develop methods of combining glass with the graphic image, constructing layers of information and embedding the image within the object.

“The result is quite literally the fusion of form and function.”

Mr Sarmiento will launch the book of Constructions and give a talk about his work at the National Glass Centre, from noon to 2pm on Friday November 28.