Nassar’s newest hand-flamed glass bead sculptural works represent a deepening of his engagement with the medium. While Nassar’s early glass works drew upon the specific forms of traditional decorative items...
Nassar’s newest hand-flamed glass bead sculptural works represent a deepening of his engagement with the medium. While Nassar’s early glass works drew upon the specific forms of traditional decorative items from Hebron, these new works are freer and more experimental. Nassar relies on intuition to give form to the patterns and plays of color that he builds; working not within the grid structure of the stitch, but rather a honeycomb of wired beads woven around a steel frame. This difference allows him to explore the possibilities of building an invented cannon of decorative motifs.
Abstraction and representation are condensed in the singular composition of "The Serene Land", 2022, in which scrims of blue and yellow glass beads are arranged in a vertical diamond pattern bookending an undulating landscape of blue-hued mountains. Other works are hinged into multipanel diptychs and triptychs, the steel joinery connecting them are modeled on gate hinges seen around New York City. For Nassar, this specificity allows him to locate the sculptures where he lives and works, as well as in the diasporic Palestine of his imagination.
Jordan Nassar, To Light The Sky, James Cohan, 48 Walker Street, April 2 - May 7, 2022 Jordan Nassar: Fantasy and Truth, the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, August 11, 2022– January 23, 2023