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<\/a>Dawn Breaks by Andrew Kosorok<\/p><\/div>\n
Peruse the aisles of any home d\u00e9cor shop and you’ll find an abundance of glassware \u2014 decorative, lovely objects meant to serve various purposes. Knowing I would be reviewing the work of Andrew Kosorok, glass artist, MFA student and teacher at Brigham Young University, I asked myself, “What is the difference between the\u00a0objets d’art<\/i>\u00a0at the local mall and actual glass fine art?” I found my answer in Kosorok’s new series of glass works, on display this month at the Special Collections Library at BYU. The objects found at the local curio shops are meant to liven a d\u00e9cor, hold a flower, or beautify an empty shelf. Kosorok’s work may be called beautiful, but they serve a higher purpose. They are visual, physical entities that, through the artist’s philosophic, metaphysical and historical explorations of the spiritual essences of cultures spanning thousands of years, enable a contemplative experience.<\/p>\n
Kosorok’s philosophic inquiries into varying spiritual cultures, manifestations of gods, saints, martyrs, deities, visions of heaven and hell are unraveled by a careful, in-depth look into his work and his approach to the medium of glass. Through excruciatingly complicated symbolism, Kosorok’s work probes and unlocks the essence of various cultures. Glass is the medium Kosorok is expert with and the vehicle for his metaphysical metaphors, which take as much time to plan as they do to create- thousands of years of culture, a thousand hours to render.<\/p>\n
<\/a>The Four Crowned Martyrs by Andrew Kosorok<\/p><\/div>\n
Kosorok’s creations are as beautiful as they are meaningful. His focus is on Islam, Buddhism, Christianity, aboriginal, Native American and ancient American cultures and their beliefs and ideology. Like objects of devotion, his works aim toward enlightenment and veneration in a contemporary, postmodern sense. His intellectual and metaphysical approach is manifest in the complex symbolism which elicits every facet contained in each of his pieces. There are no arbitrary forms but concentrated meaning, layer upon layer that elucidate the culture and the unique spirituality of each that ignite an informative discourse into such metaphysical realms. His pieces are unique to each doctrine, giving the feeling that an individual sculptor had done each. This alludes to Kosorok’s own philosophy and his erudite understanding of his subjects; these and his love of the medium are the driving forces behind his work that enable him to achieve a symbiosis of content and form in his creations.<\/p>\n
“Dawn Breaks”\u00a0is a virtual “Dome of the Rock.” Highly geometric, each unit alludes to a spiritual symbol of Islam, using numerical systems and symbology exclusive to Islamic art and architecture. An example is the use of the number 113, which not only is apparent in the cutting method of the sacred shrine housed within the edifice, a cubed structure, but references section 113 of the Koran, a prayer against ignorance. Inside this form is imprisoned an almost imperceptible headless demon of ignorance, a metaphor and a testament to knowledge which is awe inspiring in form and content.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Daibutsu in Lotus Blossom<\/p><\/div>\n
Form and content are much a part of Kosorok’s work, such as the figure of “Daibutsu in Lotus Blossom” wherein Buddhist philosophy is given life in the open petals of this 16 sectioned flower.\u00a0A portrait cut in glass of the Daibutsu at Nara, Japan, is rendered throughout the composition in major, while each petal either represents one of the eight avatars associated with each compass point or one of the eight celestial orders of beings with allegiance to Buddha, derived from Japanese texts, are represented in the minor. These are celestial guards of Buddha, beautifully crafted in a delicate flower of divinity, simple in grace yet complex in articulation and meaning.<\/p>\n
An equally complex figurative segment of the series is a nine piece configuration titled “Four Crowned Martyrs.”|2|<\/b>\u00a0Each of the pieces is an ingenuously constructed medieval-type reliquary, devotional objects relegated to each martyr. In the construction of the “reliquaries,” Kosorok etched and colored in glass the individual faces of each martyr, and then spliced each in fifteen squares and then reassembled them into one unit. This unity alludes to their common cause and common suffering. As fitting, each reliquary contains a relic unique to each martyr, a tool of their sanctity as patrons of sculpture.<\/p>\n
The most monumental of the works which will be seen in the show is called “Seven Deadly Sins.”\u00a0It consists of thirteen panels of glass aligned on a large metal frame, each carved with aboriginal or Native American symbols reflecting the subject of Dante guided by Virgil through the depths of Inferno, a passage from \u201cThe Divine Comedy.\u201d It is a metaphorical journey into the abyss, a medieval subject told contemporaneously, as might be illuminated in stained glass of medieval cathedrals. Much of the significance of this episode is relevant today: visions of the afterlife, and Kosorok uses glass to create what was once believed literally. However he uses a different semiotic than the medieval through his aboriginal and Native American iconography.<\/p>\n