AXOM Gallery is pleased to present “Menagerie” an exhibition of new works by glass artist Robin Cass. In this exhibit Cass follows her calling exploring new curiosities through various states of development and preservation. On display are fantastical works in hot-sculpted glass and metal that explore themes of discovery, perception and wonder. These otherworldly objects give us an uncanny sense of flora and fauna, organic and man-made, the beautiful and the grotesque; all while keeping the viewer in a state between memory and imagination.

Coming from a lineage of those in science and medicine, her artistic research has naturally lead her to create metaphoric and poetic creations influenced by the study of dioramas and ecosystems in the natural world. Through her process and aesthetic, she further explores how each part contributes to the larger whole. Cass creates hundreds of individual parts that are then assembled to create the larger structure that contains possibilities of animate and inanimate form and function. Cass’s ability to master the traditional craft of her medium while breaking some of its dogmatic rules, such as her use of adhesives for the assemblage of these works, have garnered her acclaim and prestige for mastery and innovation in the glass art field.

Cass began her higher education studying anthropology and political science at McGill University in Montreal before she became a sculpture major at Rhode Island School of Design in 1990. She later earned her MFA from Alfred University and moved on to become a faculty member in the Glass Program at the Rochester Institute of Technology since 1998.  She is currently serving Associate Dean of RIT’s College of Imaging Arts and Sciences. Cass has been invited to teach and lecture internationally including the Hong Kong Baptist University; the National College of Art in Dublin; and L’viv National Academy of Arts in Ukraine. Cass has also taught glassblowing at venues including Pilchuck Glass School, Haystack and The Studio at the Corning Museum of Glass. She was trained in the discipline of traditional Italian glassblowing, and uses these skills in new ways to create compelling glass works. Her pieces are included in several recent publications including “Masters of Blown Glass”, by Susan Rossi-Wilcox, and “25 Years of New Glass Review” by Tina Oldknow, curator at the Corning Museum of Glass. She was also recently featured in the April 2014 issue of American Craft Magazine. Robin has exhibited her sculptural work extensively, and her pieces can be found in a number of public and private collections in the United States and abroad. In recent years her work has been exhibited in Osaka, Japan and Quindong, China.