Peter Bremers Art in Glass

Biography

Born in Maastricht in the Netherlands in 1957, Peter got interested in fashion, architecture, and design at a young age. It was not until his years at Art College that he developed a profound appreciation for 3-dimensional art. While studying, he found a love for light and form, and started creating light-sculptures. After leaving college he kept making his unique light sculptures and started exhibiting all over Europe. His work got published in trendsetting design books and he would probably still make light-objects, if he didn’t happen to walk into a glassblowing workshop with Andries Copier at the Jan van Eyck Academy. Mesmerized by the glowing light of hot glass at the end of a blowpipe, he did not only decide to start investigating the possibilities of blown glass for his objects but also did a post-graduate at the Jan van Eyck Academy. He absorbed as much knowledge about glassblowing as he could. In 1989 Lino Tagliapietra gave a workshop in Amsterdam. Peter participated eagerly and two of his designs that Lino executed, were purchased by the Art Museum of the Hague. In the same year he went to work with master blower Neil Wilkin in England. They build a highly skilled team, producing many blown objects, often using grail-technique (glass made with one or more color overlays that are cooled, engraved, reheated, and encased in a layer of clear glass and blown again to expand the decorative engravings). It resulted in many successful exhibits and his first book Metamorphosis.

Another significant change in his work and his approach to glass as a medium came after a very influential and inspiring voyage to the Antarctic in 2001. He translated his impressions of the landscapes, the glaciers and the square rigged three-master he traveled on, into blown glass. Doing so, he found that even though the results were remarkable, he could not blow an iceberg. He was so enthralled with the many icebergs he saw that he refers to it as “nature`s floating sculpture garden”. Being trained as a sculptor, he quite easily changed over to kiln-casting, a technique used specifically successful by studios in the Czech Republic, which he has worked with since. The series of sculptures known as Icebergs and Paraphernalia became an internationally acclaimed success. In the book by the same name, British art glass expert Dan Klein called the sculptor Peter Bremers, somewhat to his surprise, a landscape artist. His fascination with ice and the way it transfers light, made him undertake more travels to the Polar Regions, resulting in a vast body of ever-expanding work showing nature`s endless source of inspiration for this artist. A visit to Arizona in 2008 changed not only his personal life, as he met his muse Janet there. The Canyons and Deserts of The Four Corners also inspired him to a new body of work by the same title. To him it was a logical step to go from the cold transparent ice to the hot density of the desert`s rocks and mountains. Once again, this earth and it`s awesome beauty intrigued the artist, leading to a collection of unique sculptures. The area of Sedona became a refuge. A perfect place for long hikes through nature and quiet time for reflection while far away from his studio in the Netherlands. Traveling has always been a necessity. His curiosity as a human being and an artist for our planet`s cultural, spiritual, and natural diversity took him to all the continents. As he puts it, ‘when we travel to other countries and cultures, not only our outer world changes but so does our inner world and the way we perceive our planet and fellow beings, as well as ourselves.’ A body of work called The Inward Journey resulted from that.

The artist carries this concept of bringing together the profane and the celestial into all his creations. The sculptures are often quiet and introspective, with series like 7 Bodies, Perception, Transformation and more recently Positive Space and Initiations. About the Positive Space series, he wrote: “Finding ourselves in a time of increasingly negative perception of every day`s news events and an overall rising feeling of being unsafe in a world of religious, political, and social divisiveness, we may forget to focus on the possibilities and comfort offered by positive action and attitude. Positive Space symbolizes tolerance, appreciation, hope and opportunity.”

Another more recent series is called Vibrations. Everything that holds energy is in flux and vibrates. Vibrations can be slow, as currents in water and wind, or fast like light or high pitch sound. Making forms that make energy visible in static sculpture, the artist uses the symbolism of waves in lines and volumes, regular or irregular, enhancing, or disturbing, growing or calming, interfering or meditative. The direction is often linear but subject to change. Lines can interact. By using the materiality of structure, the movement can be regular or shattered. Colors are soothing or energizing. Clarity and opaqueness question the viewers emotional senses. As a form language Peter Bremers defines human energy as a complex state of movement and interaction, resulting in emotional wellbeing or isolation. Very appropriate in the time of the Covid-19 pandemic.