For most of us the word neon brings to mind the glaring signage of Times Square or the bright lights of Las Vegas. While it’s true that neon got its start in the commercial field of advertising, a few creative artists have manipulated the technique of glass-bending with the noble gases into a dynamic and vibrant sculptural medium worthy of museums and private collections.
ILLUMINATIONS: The Neon Sculpture of Brian Coleman and David Svenson is a wondrous contemporary exhibition that showcases the work of two such neon artists that have taken the art form to new dimensions. Known as the “noble gases,” neon, argon, krypton, helium, and xenon are all natural elements coexisting in our environment. When isolated and electrically charged, each gives a unique color of light. Because neon is the brightest, it became the familiar name for the glass tube sign industry.
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on a slide to see a larger image:
Brian Coleman
Reclining Nude
8” x 42”
Brian Coleman
Blue Zig Zag
24” x 36”
David Svenson
Marathon Runners
8’ x 20”
David Svenson
Spirits Descending 20’ x 10’
About David Svenson
The two worlds of David Svenson began when as a teenager he spent the summer in Alaska carving with Indians at the Alaska Indian Arts training center. Growing up in the orange groves of southern California in the shadow of his celebrated artist father, John Svenson, he was infused with an artist’s spirit and curiosity. After high school Svenson lived with the Tlingit artists in Alaska, embracing the culture and pursuing new creative paths. Intrigued by the properties of neon and glass, he sought out a master tube-bender in southern California to learn the process and became mesmerized with one of the few mediums not associated with his father’s work. Thus began his marriage of carving and illumination.
Svenson recalls his early exposure to neon in childhood, living between the rural path of famed Route 66 and the drive-in theater just beyond the orange grove with its 40-foot tall animated neon sign. He is influenced by a broad scope of impressions, from third grade heroes like Abraham Lincoln to the rock music lyrics of Frank Zappa.
Svenson now splits his time between rural southern California and Alaska where he maintains close ties as a member of the Tlingit family. A graduate of Pitzer College in Claremont, California, he teaches neon at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco and the Pilchuck Glass School in Washington. He works with the Tlingit Indians on monumental carving projects and has curated glass and neon exhibitions in the United States and Japan. Svenson is a Board member of the Museum of Neon Art in Los Angeles exhibiting there numerous times, often with colleague Brian Coleman. He has also exhibited at the Museum of Craft & Folk Art, San Francisco; the Grove Gallery, University of California San Diego; the Sheldon Museum, Haines, Alaska; and the Oceanside Museum of Art.
About Brian Coleman
Early in his career Brian Coleman received a National Endowment for the Arts grant for his work in neon which brought the medium into prominence as desirable fine art. Many artists now working with neon credit Coleman with transforming the image of glaring commercial advertising to elegant and graceful sculpture sought by collectors and museums around the globe.
Coleman received a degree in Industrial Design from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and embarked on a career designing custom neon and cold cathode lighting for residential and commercial interiors. In 1972 he began doing his own neon glass blowing and exhibited at Rudi Stern’s “Let There Be Neon” Gallery in New York City. As a mentor to other emerging neon artists, he taught workshops at California College of Arts and Crafts and San Francisco State University before his first solo show at the Museum of Neon Art in Los Angeles in 1985.
Today, Coleman works exclusively on commissions from his rural California studio. Over the years he has learned to balance the three elements of the neon: the glass, the gas, and the phosphorescence, to attain the same freedom and mastery that a painter feels with pigments and canvas. His public art commissions include neon sculpture for the Palo Alto Cultural Center; an animated neon sculpture for the anniversary of the Monterey Bay Aquarium; the train station in Rouen, France; outdoor designs for Dentsu Corporation, Tokyo, Japan; and the atrium of the Museum of Art and History, Santa Cruz, California. His exhibitions span over 30 years from galleries in New York and the Corning Museum of Glass; to Paris, France; and in California at the California Crafts Museum, the Museum of Neon Art, and the Oceanside Museum of Art.
