Resonance
Brynn Hurlstone, MFA 2023, Glass
I refuse to make work that presents either an easy answer or an easy question, choosing instead to invite engagement with the precarious via objects and environments that call for effort, slowness, care, and genuine engagement. Using process as a substitute for self, I explore facets of trauma, question normative behavior, and examine vulnerability through the interplay of materials distilled to their simplest, most poetic essence. My work is alive, in continual transformation, and activated by human presence. Steel weakens, bleeding turquoise and gold under the gentle spill of water; glass beckons and responds to touch; salt grows ever-intensifying formations. Fleeting iterations of materiality are captured onto form and surface, becoming tangible echoes drowned out by the wordless resonance of embodied sensation.
As a result, my practice is one of teleological, experimental making in pursuit of connective moments that give voice to the unspeakable. It is grounded in the belief that we, as infinitely layered sentient histories, can reach out from within our isolated knowing to see one another and understand without explanation. By inviting the viewer to step into the work and become a part of its conversation, I hold space for such a thing to become true.
“but for your presence,” 2023, Glass, Steel, Water, Water Soluble Paper, Laser Printed Text, Salt, Wood, Dimensions Variable. Photo Credit: Sam Fritch
“but for your presence,” 2023, Glass, Steel, Water, Water Soluble Paper, Laser Printed Text, Salt, Wood, Dimensions Variable. Photo Credit: Sam Fritch
“but for your presence,” 2023, Glass, Steel, Water, Water Soluble Paper, Laser Printed Text, Salt, Wood, Dimensions Variable. Photo Credit: Sam Fritch
“Why I/You,” 2023, Rust, Cotton Rag and Watersoluble Papers, Silk Suture, Dimensions Variable. Photo Credit: Sam Fritch
“but for your presence,” 2023, Glass, Steel, Water, Water Soluble Paper, Laser Printed Text, Salt, Wood, Dimensions Variable. Photo Credit: Sam Fritch
“but for your presence,” 2023, Glass, Steel, Water, Water Soluble Paper, Laser Printed Text, Salt, Wood, Dimensions Variable. Photo Credit: Sam Fritch
“but for your presence,” 2023, Glass, Steel, Water, Water Soluble Paper, Laser Printed Text, Salt, Wood, Dimensions Variable. Photo Credit: Sam Fritch
Installation View: “but for your presence,” 2023, Glass, Steel, Water, Water Soluble Paper, Laser Printed Text, Salt, Wood, Dimensions Variable. Photo Credit: Sam Fritch “Why I/You,” 2023, Rust, Cotton Rag and Watersoluble Papers, Silk Suture, Dimensions Variable. Photo Credit: Sam Fritch
Brynn Hurlstone
Website: www.brynnhurlstone.com
Instagram: @brynnalexis
Brynn Hurlstone is a transdisciplinary artist, educator, administrator, and fabricator who creates consumptive, sensorial objects and environments that invite engagement, often gesturing toward the taboo by utilizing the inherent, perceived fragility of glass, and the ephemerality of presence via material transformation. Hurlstone's work considers trauma and its relationship to precarity, unspeakability, isolation, connection, and release by allowing material reactivity and subjective experience to speak reciprocally through her work. Hurlstone is the owner of Second Generation Glassworks, the cofounder of the Glass Impact nonprofit coalition, and the former Director of Operations of Public Glass in San Francisco. She received a BFA from Bowling Green State University and an MFA from Tyler School of Art and Architecture where she was awarded a Graduate Teaching Assistantship and two Deans Grants for research. She has participated in numerous exhibitions, including No Signal at Stella Elkins Gallery, the Glass Art Society International Student Exhibition, and the recent national exhibition Through a Glass Darkly at Delaware Contemporary Museum, which was hailed as the “new guard of glassmakers” in the Spring 2023 issue of Glass Magazine. She currently resides in Philadelphia, PA.