2024, 4" X 4" X 2" diameter, Media: Non-clay, Stoneware, Firing Process: Low-fire, Surface: Non-ceramic
In 2024, I devised a recipe and firing schedule for art foam glass by studying chemical engineering of foam glass for architectural insulation. I have been experimenting with combining foam glass with plate glass and ceramic, using various colorants in the glass. Conceptually, the challenge is to “give physical form to air and other formless particles and vibrations.” Sculptures range from 4” X 4” X 2” to 6” X 6” X 6”
2024, 3" X 4" X 4", Media: Non-clay, Stoneware, Firing Process: Low-fire, Oxidation, Surface: Non-ceramic
In 2024, I devised a recipe and firing schedule for art foam glass by studying chemical engineering of foam glass for architectural insulation. I have been experimenting with combining foam glass with plate glass and ceramic, using various colorants in the glass. Conceptually, the challenge is to “give physical form to air and other formless particles and vibrations.” Sculptures range from 4” X 4” X 2” to 6” X 6” X 6”
2024, 4" X 4" X 2", Media: Non-clay, Firing Process: Low-fire, Surface: Non-ceramic
In 2024, I devised a recipe and firing schedule for art foam glass by studying chemical engineering of foam glass for architectural insulation. I have been experimenting with combining foam glass with plate glass and ceramic, using various colorants in the glass. Conceptually, the challenge is to “give physical form to air and other formless particles and vibrations.” Sculptures range from 4” X 4” X 2” to 6” X 6” X 6”
2024, 2" X 2" X 3", Media: Non-clay, Stoneware, Firing Process: Low-fire, Oxidation, Surface: Non-ceramic
In 2024, I devised a recipe and firing schedule for art foam glass by studying chemical engineering of foam glass for architectural insulation. I have been experimenting with combining foam glass with plate glass and ceramic, using various colorants in the glass. Conceptually, the challenge is to “give physical form to air and other formless particles and vibrations.” Sculptures range from 2” X 2” X 2” to 6” X 6” X 6”
2024, Pedestals against 10' wall, Media: Non-clay, Stoneware, Firing Process: Low-fire, Oxidation, Surface: Non-ceramic
In 2024, I devised a recipe and firing schedule for art foam glass by studying chemical engineering of foam glass for architectural insulation. I have been experimenting with combining foam glass with plate glass and ceramic, using various colorants in the glass. Conceptually, the challenge is to “give physical form to air and other formless particles and vibrations.” Sculptures range from 4” X 4” X 2” to 6” X 6” X 6”
2024, 10' X 10' X 10' room, Media: Non-clay, Firing Process: Other, Surface: Non-ceramic
The Drop explores sound, air, and water through a computer-animated water droplet. Through deformation and phase transformation, the droplet visualizes sound wave data from a variety of sources. Snapshots of the drop are chosen, 3D printed in rubber, and made into sculptures cast in blown glass.
2024, 10' X 10' X 10' room, Media: Non-clay, Firing Process: Other, Surface: Non-ceramic
The Drop explores sound, air, and water through a computer-animated water droplet. Through deformation and phase transformation, the droplet visualizes sound wave data from a variety of sources. Snapshots of the drop are chosen, 3D printed in rubber, and made into sculptures cast in blown glass.
2024, 15' diameter, Media: Non-clay, Firing Process: Other, Surface: Non-ceramic
The Drop explores sound, air, and water through a computer-animated water droplet. Through deformation and phase transformation, the droplet visualizes sound wave data from a variety of sources. Snapshots of the drop are chosen, 3D printed in rubber, and made into sculptures cast in blown glass.
2025, 3'X4'X3' pedestal, Media: Non-clay, Stoneware, Firing Process: Low-fire, Oxidation, Surface: Glazed, Non-ceramic
I created glass and ceramic sculptures cast from a 3d printed sound wave data form and covered the ceramic sculptures with living mycelium mushrom spores and glass foam. I filled the vesssels with live spirulina algae grown by collaborator Dr. Fiona Bell, which provides oxygen to the air around it. Grow-lights beneath the vessels illuminate the green liquid while providing the UV light necessary for it to grow in the gallery.
2025, 3'X4'X3' pedestal, 10'X10'X6" wall works, Media: Mixed Media, Non-clay, Stoneware, Firing Process: Low-fire, Oxidation, Surface: Glazed, Non-ceramic
I created glass and ceramic sculptures cast from a 3d printed sound wave data form and covered the ceramic sculptures with living mycelium mushrom spores and glass foam. I filled the vesssels with live spirulina algae grown by collaborator Dr. Fiona Bell, which provides oxygen to the air around it. Grow-lights beneath the vessels illuminate the green liquid while providing the UV light necessary for it to grow in the gallery.
Artist Statement
As an interdisciplinary media artist and professor at a public university in the College of Fine Arts and School of Engineering, I combine computation with elemental materials including mist, air, earth and glass, united by a goal to make invisible patterns visible, audible and tangible.
I am currently creating animations and objects imagining the shape of air. Air contains essences of place: feeling and tasting distinctly differently in varied geographies. I computationally map sound spectrograms and animate, 3d print and cast resulting shapes in rubber, ceramics, blown glass and other materials. I also use materials chemistry and biology to create new forms and unexpected material responses with air, for example creating porous foam glass and biofoam sculptures. My work examines technology as a bridge between breath on a human scale, air on an architectural scale, and atmosphere on a geologic scale.
Bio
Andrea Polli is an artist working at the intersection of art, science and technology. Her interdisciplinary research has been presented as public artworks, media installations, community projects, performances, broadcasts, mobile and geolocative media, publications, and through the curation and organization of public exhibitions and events. She creates artworks designed to raise awareness of environmental issues. Often these works express scientific data obtained through her collaborations with scientists and engineers and have taken the form of sound art, vehicle-based works, public light works, mobile media experiences, and bio-art and design. Polli holds an MFA in Time Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a PhD in practice-led research from the University of Plymouth in the UK.