An innovation truly unique to Marlene Rose's work is her use of found objects as integral parts of her creations making each piece both ancient and modern. Each is hand cast from molten glass in a spectacular process of heat and light.
Marlene Rose-Coates was born in New York with art all around her. Her mother was a painter and her father a sculptor of found objects.
Educated at Promfret School in Connecticut, she her exploration of visual mediums at Tulane University in New Orleans. Here she came into her own as an artist, developing her unique style. She held her first solo exhibition before graduation, with a sell out show at the top gallery in New Orleans.
Following this success she went on to graduate school at California College of the Arts and Crafts in Oakland, CA. She even found time for a Summer Program at Philchuck Glass School in Seattle, Washington, the birthplace and epicenter of the Art Glass Movement. She has since traveled extensively throughout Europe, the Middle East, South America, Africa and the Caribbean gaining even more influences and ideas for her work.
Her goal as an artist is to create life in what ever she makes. In simple terms, she makes the pieces come alive revealing the true and unique source of life energy in each creation.
“When People first view my work, I'm often told they feel a "certain aliveness" inherent in the work itself. My goal as an artist to inject life into whatever I make. In simple terms to make the piece come alive. Each piece is hand cast from molten glass in a spectacular process of heat and light. The energy of this "Dangerous Dance of Creation" reflects in the finished work.”
Transcendent and Transparent
In the end, the work has a quality of timelessness reflecting both ancient and modern. They celebrate the unique properties of glass, of transparency, and shine and reflection. And because these are cast objects, they hold in their form the memory of the shapes and textures of the materials that formed them; they are fine-grained, rugged or smooth, transparent or translucent, colored or clear.
When I cast the sculptures I include in them relics of modern life, interesting objects that have been cast away, industrial waste items that seem to unite present and past. In the end, the completed piece transcends the sensibility of mere time
Art, The Eternal Flame
The glass immortalizes a glimpse of something fleeting beyond the moment, taking that moment and freezing it over. “I call these pieces Evocators. They are kept moments, shards of what I have seen, unnamed emotions, visions, concepts, memories. They call back; and they are the vehicle on which a viewers vision can ride away. The glass is there only to see through.”