Montague Gallery is pleased to present Transparent Collaborations, a selection of artworks from longtime artists, collaborators and friends, Jason Christian and Dan Friday. Working in proximity to each other in the Pacific Northwest glass community and with a deep relationship rooted in art, work and friendship, this show presents the artists’ separate works alongside collaborative pieces.
Jason Christian grew up in the Seattle area and discovered glass at the age of 21. Tenaciously pursuing the Seattle glass studio scene, Christian worked for multiple notable artists and developed the exceptional technical Venetian glassmaking skills that defines his personal style. Fusing traditional glass techniques with a modern approach defined by bold color and exciting shapes like yo-yos, dragons, umbrellas or even Faberge eggs–Christian’s work converses with the formal aspects of the glass art form. At the same time, he brings a playful perspective combining past and present to create highly contemporary looking artworks.
Dan Friday also grew up in the Seattle region with deep roots in the Puget Sound area as a Lummi Nation native. He describes his discovery of glass as a life-altering path towards becoming an artist and studied with many prominent local and international artists to develop his remarkable style and skill. Friday’s work blends the traditional glass techniques of his professional training with the aesthetics and themes of Lummi native lands like bears, feathers, salmon and vertically-oriented totemic shapes. These expertly articulated figurative shapes are at once a homage to Friday’s Puget sound roots as well as the lineage of Puget Sound glassmaking.
In Transparent Collaborations these two friends and colleagues, who are working at the top of their game, will offer new works for viewers. Both artists work with transparent glass, but have developed unique visual languages. Christian and Friday share an impetus for strong juxtapositions – Friday brings together native and glass aesthetics while Christian melds old and new. While their work is markedly different, their collaborations are a harmonious blend of the two styles. In their Heritage Totem collaboration, a bear on hind legs holds up a salmon and a fox in a stack of earthly interconnectedness that implies a nod to Friday’s culture while Volpe (Italian for Fox) is a surname in Christian’s family. These special collaborations honor each artists’ roots, and also speak to their personal relationship with each other and the bonds and weight of work and friendship.
