artist Bio
Saman Kalantari is an accomplished artist from Shiraz, Iran. With a Bachelor of Arts degree from Azad University in 1994, Kalantari began his career in ceramic arts and showcased his work in several exhibitions before relocating to Italy in 2004. It was there that he discovered a fascination for glasswork at a Bolzano gallery, leading to a two-year apprenticeship with Vetroricerca Glas & Modern.
Kalantari has since been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Bullseye “Newcomer Award from E-merge” in 2008 and the Gold Award in 2018 in the United States and the UK’s Glass Prize that same year. His work has been published in a variety of magazines and journals, including Glasshouse, Neues Glas/New Glass, and New Glass Review 41.
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Artist statement
I think of wastes as an artistic material, the presence of something residual, and processes of things that happened or have been. I have been trying to push the glass to its limits and making new experiments. I try to express what different materials have in common or in contrast with each other and how they react when they are back to their origin. I use glass to explain the consistency, Fragility, mortality, and subtleness of human beings, life, and nature.
just a few selection of Awards & Exhibitions
- GlasHart, Fortvuren, Netherlands, 2009
- Glass and Mixed Media, Galleria Civica, Bolzano-Italy, 2009
- Bullseye Gallery, Portland, Oregon 2010
- Finalist, E-merge, Bullseye Resource Center, Portland, Oregon, 2010
- TAG Grant, Glass Art Society, 2015
- Gold Award, Emerge, 2018