Chair

In the early 1970s, Therman Statom began his career with glass as a student at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence. Although he wanted to be a glassblower, he was also attracted to sheet glass, which he cut and assembled with his blown forms in room-size installations. His interest in composition and assemblage led him to make small, paint-splashed, sheet glass houses. The houses enclosed glass elements, such as shards and blown objects, with mixed media, including found objects in a variety of materials and the artist’s writing and drawings. Over time, Statom’s houses grew larger, and other similarly constructed domestic forms, such as lifesize chairs and ladders, appeared. These were followed by the wall pieces, such as Clearly Oranges (on exhibit in the Sculpture Gallery), that the artist calls “divided paintings.” Statom combines all of these elements—houses, divided paintings, chairs, and ladders—in his fanciful, large-scale installations.