Michael Behrens – The fluid nature of glass
Key Points
Born 1973 in Germany // 2003 Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Maastricht Academy of Fine Arts (Netherlands) // 2006 Founded his own studio in Düsseldorf // 2009 & 2013 Jutta Cuny-Franz Memorial Award, Selected Entries, Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf // 2009 State Prize for Sculpture, North Rhine-Westphalia, Düsseldorf // 2020 & 2021 & 2022 Scholarship form the Ministry of Culture and Science, North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany) // 2011 Kalamazoo Institute of Arts Award, Michigan // 2014 Charles Shepard Fort Wayne Award, Michigan // Imagine Museum of Glass Award, Michigan (USA)
Public Collections (selection)
Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf // Ernsting Stiftung, Coesfeld // Achilles – Stiftung, Hamburg // MAKK, Museum of applied Arts, Cologne // Glass Museum Immenhausen, Immenhausen // Glass Museum Frauenau – Frauenau // Glass Museum Lauscha – Lauscha (Germany) // MusVerre – Sars-Poteries (France) // Novotný Museum – Nový Bor (Czech Republic) // Imagine Museum – St. Petersburg, Florida // Seven Bridges Foundation – Greenwich, Connecticut // Palmer Museum of Art – State College, Pennsylvania // Basch Collection, Ringling College Galleries, Sarasota, Florida (USA)
Michael Behrens’s has developed his exclusive and noteable style in his career. The Seaformsseries embodies decades of his personal sensory experiences above and below water. The resulting works appear almost natural in nature, grown in the wild and then ossified, frozen in time. The diverse color range and interior movement varies as if created organically by the environment while each shape and structure provide a strong and powerful appearance. The natural and random appearance of the artist’s works is created by the exterior form and the specific details: The fine modeling of the subareas and edges, the interplay of matt and polished surfaces as well as the cell-like structures emerging from fusing of the glass sections.
Michael Behrens about his work:
»To me, nature is a meditative place where I can structure my thoughts and gain new energy. As a sculptor I perceive nature intensely. The sensual impressions I collect in my daily life and abroad while traveling are the key to my creativeness and form the basis of my work. In order to provide the works with the expressiveness to reflect these impressions in all their facets, I am continuously exploring the relationship between outer shape and content. Almost in an evolutionary sense, old shapes transform and give way to a new sculptural language. Thereby, the environmental context must be considered during the creative process, as with every sculptural object, the model and its surrounding are interrelated. But space does not only determine the impact of the work, the work rather determines the impact of the space and has the power to internalize it.«
