Jason Robert Bauer (b. 1986) is an American artist working in glass, light, sound, and time. His practice begins in one of the most physically demanding of crafts. Glassblowing requires heat, speed, stamina, and a crew moving in close coordination, and Bauer, a former amateur acrobat, is drawn to that intensity. What he makes from it moves the other way: toward stillness.
Bauer's works are instruments for attention. Still Time (2021), shown at the Toledo Museum of Art, is a clock that tells time through shifting moiré patterns of light in reeded glass, a language viewers learn by watching. In the Night Light series, blown glass and full-spectrum LEDs become architectural light bodies that change entirely between their lit and unlit states. His recent work reinterprets furnace glass's long tradition of pattern: rather than fixing pattern within the material, Bauer uses layers of traditional techniques to cast it outward as light.
Bauer’s work has been exhibited at Fort Makers, The Assemblage, Lorimoto Gallery, The Bitter End, and Bowery Electric in New York City, as well as the Chrysler Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, and the Toledo Museum of Art. He has participated in artist residencies at STARworks, the Pittsburgh Glass Center, and the Penland School of Crafts, among others. His work has been featured in publications including The New York Times, New York Magazine, Dwell, Design Milk, and Sight Unseen.
JasonRobertBauer@gmail.com