Mark Pavlovits

Every object you encounter is the terminus of a long process. Often, the most simple seeming things have the most complicated and arduous origins. A physical entity can contain an invisible story. Years of history, research and labor may be folded into its body. This is especially true of art objects, which are sometimes intentionally vague about the manner in which they came to be. Part of their appeal can be the evocative air of mystery about them - the impression of having just spontaneously appeared, already complete. The maker however, remembers.

Mark Pavlovits carries this memory in what he makes. “People don’t see the forty or fifty failed attempts,” Mark says of his enigmatic process, the origin of which can be traced to his study of gemology:

I spent years trying to recreate the beauty I saw in [...] gemstones with my glasswork. I used to work early on with recycled shards of glass. I remember seeing the beauty in a single shard of glass on the floor of my studio and how it perfectly mimicked the beauty of an unworked rough gemstone. I saved that shard of glass and thought about it for some time. I wanted to use that shard (and many more) to make large forms but was met with many challenges. It took an uncountable amount of hours [...] over a few years.