reviews
“Prepare to be blown away… Her sculptures are complex. They border on the surreal since she takes the ordinary and makes it strange. ”
Regina Haggo, Hamilton Spectator
Iridescent Show, Earls Court Gallery, 2014-2015
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“Vandermey tells stories, stories that tell us something about her and also about us. Her sculptures are beautiful narratives but with an ugly undertone. They invite you to contemplate life and death, past and future, light and dark. They invite you to mediate, but they never allow you to relax. You’re allowed your own opinion, but not without questioning it.
The natural expression of the materials being used is often in strident contrast with the message being conveyed. The past is revisited and becomes as confusing as the present or the future. Paula’s work is just as complex as life itself. The story has many endings. It’s up to the viewer to discover them.”
Koen Vanderstukken, 2012 BCH, KIHA Antwerp, BFA (St. Lucas Gent), MFA (St. Lucia Gent) Head of Glass. Sheridan College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning, Oakville, ON, Canada
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“Vandermey’s work is a re-exploration of those allegories that struck fear and reverence into the souls of people centuries past, however her sensitivity toward the fragile human condition is communicated through elegant compositions and austere craftsmanship. Striking a balance between viciousness and vulnerability, Vandermey’s work is a fitting tribute to the desperate search for beauty universal to all civilizations.”
Cole Swanson, Curator & Residency Program Coordinator Living Arts Centre (LAC) Mississauga, ON, Canada
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“Paula’s work is both enigmatic and deeply meaningful. This would seem paradoxical but for the fact that the two states are wonderfully married in pieces that explore femininity and myth. It’s rare that I wish to stop and view any artwork for longer than a few moments, but Paula’s work demands a good long perusal. The ensuing internal conversation is always full of interesting questions and satisfying responses and I walk away with a permanent image in my mind of work that is most memorable.”
Jamie Gray, President, CEO, Glass Art Association of Canada
“Paula Vandermey’s work features rich textures, deep colors and a variety of materials, exploring natural human shape and form, while reaching into the human condition including sexuality, psychology, addiction and mental health. Throughout the years, her use of materials and technical processes have evolved to include a slew of different glass techniques, metals and found objects. She organically incorporates and combines these, to create stunning visual textures and beautiful sculptural works, while always expressing her passion for raw human emotion.”
Pierre Poussin, designer & public artist
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“Vandermey’s work contains many layers of meaning no doubt augmented by the visual stimulus her work proffers. Her constructed narratives acknowledge bricolage principles that examine both near and far histories and furnish the artist with an extended visual vocabulary on which to draw. Figurative elements are central to her portfolio where human and animal forms are realized as both stylized and abstract representations. The figure as a whole or component is often juxtaposed with other symbolic triggers and monumentalized through the use of integral elevated platforms. These confident gestures reference formal qualities of figurative sculpture but also evoke the notion of transcendence. Recognizable elements in her work connect the viewer yet this is constantly disrupted by abstracted form and the employed inherent dimensional qualities that glass offers. Vandermey simultaneously renders the glass both opaque and transparent, perhaps a metaphor for the conscious and unconscious, a theme that occurs throughout her body of works. These complexities are carefully considered and meticulously constructed and are testament to her technical and theoretical capabilities.”
Andrew Livingstone, PhD. MA, PGDip, BA (hons)
Senior Lecturer and Leader of CARCuos Ceramic Arts Research Centre and MA Ceramics Programme Leader at the University of Sunderland, The National Glass Centre, Sunderland.
Artist, Writer, Academic
