Art

Item Description

Rudi Gritsch

Swimming Stone

2010

Kiln Cast Optical Glass

38” x 33” x 15”

$2,400

Item Special Note

Rudi Gritsch has over 28 years expertise in kilnforming.  His include becoming an independent glass worker, the director for research and development at the Bullseye Glass Company and presently the head of the kilnforming department at the Glasfachschule Kramsach in Austria. Mr. Gritsch takes his work from the initial phases of design through the detailed setups, firings, and finishing processes to complete works of art.

Rudy Gritsch was born in the Vienna Area in 1959. He studied Glasspainting and Glassrestauration and finished his Master Degree at the Glasfachschule Kramsach/Tirol in 1982.

Since 1986 he is a faculty of the HTL/Kolleg for Glassdesign and is the Head of the Kilnforming and Hotglass department of the school. As a “Pioneer of Kilnformed glass” he founded the first Fusingdepartment at an European School. 

In 1990 he started his own Atelier and Kilnformingstudio in Austria where he is creating Art in Glass, he is designing Glass objects and executing Glass in Architecture.

Major Projects in this field are beside interior designs for Banks and Hotels the  glass altars and furniture for the Abby of Stams/Tyrol, the Hospital Church in Kufstein/Tirol, the Krypta of the Dome of Salzburg and the Austrian Millenniumchurch in Stattersdorf/St. Pölten.l

From 1992 to 1993 Rudy Gritsch was invited by a leading American Glassfactory to work as Artist in Residence and as  the Director of the Research and Developmentdepartment. He was researching, teaching, developing new products and assisting artists as Narcissus Quagliata and Lino Tagliapietra.

The themes in Rudy`s Artwork are circling around the development of a human to a mature and “round” Beeing”.  Many works can be seen as Symbols or Metaphers for  feelings or a personal truth. Like it can be seen in his temporary works,  “The Swimming Stones”

Beside teaching and working in Art Rudy is always interested in all kinds of developments. In this contex he designed and makes small Glass elements he calles “ Bell Occhi”, beautiful eyes, as little statements and sympols for a productline named PORT-AMI

The background to this work was a conceptual Project in Spain where he worked as Artist in Residence on mouldings from stonecircles in the streets of La Granja. He transfered these castings in big glass objects to make it visible.