Marc Petrovic
Spotted Trout, Glass with Steel Base
Marc Petrovic, Home Before the Gloaming, mixed media, 57x28.5x4 in
Marc Petrovic, Love Bottle, glass, 12x4x4 in, SOLD
Marc Petrovic, Small Boat in the Bottle (blue), glass, 6x16x4 in, SOLD
Marc Petrovic, Crooked River Condensate, mixed media, 31x23x4.5 in
Marc Petrovic, Constellation - Aids to Navigation, mixed media, 32.5x29.5x5.5 in
Marc Petrovic, Same River Twice, mixed media, 27.75x39x5.5 in
Marc Petrovic, Petite Avian Pair (blue), glass, SOLD
Marc Petrovic, Petite Avian Pair (red), glass
Marc Petrovic, Lake Erie Life Boats, glass, 20.5x46.5x4 in
Marc Petrovic, Predator/Prey (Amber), glass, 20.5x 25.5x4 in
Marc Petrovic, In Memoriam, glass, 53x44x4 in
“Often in life the importance of someone or something is revealed most clearly through its absence. One’s point of view determines whether we identify this as negative space, or positive impact. It is the absence of material in the core of these spheres that makes them complete. Once illuminated, the script is literally flipped allowing us to make better sense of the absence. In every relationship the opportunity is there to leave an impression, and to cast a long and lasting shadow.” -Marc Petrovic
Artist Info
“We are all navigators; travelers on our journey between waypoints. While it is important for us to live for the journey, I am aware that we mark our lives by moments, experiences, and events. As we travel, we gather what we need or believe we need along the way. We collect and accumulate what is important to us, and we decide what is of value and what to believe in. Each traveler is unique, and while we are all in the same ocean, we live in our own little worlds.
Growing up, my brother and I had a wall map of the USA we stuck pins into to show where we had traveled. It struck me that even though we all lived in the same house, that we were a family, our individual colored pins laid out separate patterns. Our geography is encompassing and universal, but at the same time, individual.
As an artist, I return again and again to the same themes and find, as the Greek philosopher Heraclitus suggested, “You cannot reenter the same river twice, for the river is always changing.” The source of inspiration may appear on the surface to vary, but the overriding themes remain. Themes of identity, geography, cycles of life, and self reflection—essentially, the human condition. The sense of identity formed through journey is at the core of my Navigator series, while my Distilled Life Series seeks to preserve and examine a single moment in time. The larger Distilled Life Bottles preserve and protect narratives like samples in a laboratory that we return to study when we have more information, when we can better make sense of the contents of the jar.
The individual pieces in my series serve as stage sets for the protagonists in my stories. The boats and birds represent the being in these compositions of the human condition. Lenses bring focus and clarity, but they can also distort or amplify the viewers perspective. Burnt matches signify opportunities taken, while unburnt matches indicate potential experiences yet to transpire—a spark of hope. The small bottles are meant to contain, separate, and categorize objects, ideas, and conversations. They act as markers of conversations past, the shards of beach glass signify the remains of past dialogues and memories. The Whelk shells signify communication; cupped to the ear of the romantic listener, they contain the roar of the ocean, an invocation from a deeper source. The chambered nautilus reminds me of both home and growth. Spiraling ever out, its core remains central to its beginnings as it adds layer upon layer to its self and identity.
As the artist and creator of these works, I return again and again to these themes and find as Heraclitus suggested, you cannot reenter the same river twice, for the river is always changing.
Constellations - Aids to Navigation.
Ancient navigators looked to the stars for guidance on their journey. The lens allows us to examine our world both near and far. In Constellations, I use the lens to reference particular places of importance—and more fundamentally, to highlight the observation that we are not from broad geographical places, but rather from very specific locations. By continuation, our geographical influences derive from our own constellations of personal, unique locations. These are the places we know, that we travel from, and that we refer to while we are away. We carry these places with us, but we often only examine them through the lens of time and distance.” -Marc Petrovic
Marc Petrovic graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Art in 1991. His work has been exhibited extensively across the United States, and is in the permanent collections of the Arkansas Arts Center Foundation Collection, the Bergstroff Mahler Museum, the Chrysler Museum of Art, the Corning Museum of Glass, the Fuller Craft Museum, the Museum of Arts and Design (NYC), the Niijima Museum of Glass (Tokyo), the Racine Art Museum, the Tacoma Museum of Glass, and the Tucson Museum of Art, among others. Marc was awarded the Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award in 2017, and has been the artist in residence at the Henry Ford Museum, as well as the Tacoma Glass Museum.