Granite Calimpong
Under The Bank, Up A Narrow Valley
Traver Gallery is pleased to present Under the Bank, Up a Narrow Valley, a new body of work by Seattle-based sculptor Granite Calimpong. The exhibition grows from his relationship with the rugged California coast where he grew up and the Pacific Northwest, where he has lived for nearly two decades. The colors, textures, and organisms found in these places seep into Calimpong’s work. The sculptures evoke a setting somewhere between the real and the magical, where beauty, wonder, and awe meet grief, sadness, and loss. Throughout, ceramics and glass are pushed and pulled into intermediate states that embody a range of natural and geologic processes.
Iridescent surfaces, vibrant crust-like formations, metallic textured mushrooms, and optical glass elements come together to form an environment of their own, moving between aspects of nature that seem unbelievable and the truly fantastic. Each object is an unpredictable result of these processes, representing terrain in flux, marked by climate catastrophe, human desire, and a remarkable capacity for adaptation and transformation. While the Anthropocene and dire climate predictions remind us of humanity’s impact on the planet, Calimpong also considers how the natural world continually shapes and transforms its human occupants.
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About
Granite Calimpong - view profile
Granite Calimpong is a multidisciplinary sculptor and educator living and working in Seattle. Calimpong received a BFA in Interdisciplinary Computing in the Arts and Music from UCSD in 2007 and completed his MFA in Sculpture at the University of Washington in 2019. While a graduate student at UW he explored perception and various visual phenomena associated with illusions through the use of wood, clay, glass, photography, and metal. During the decade prior to attending the UW, Calimpong worked predominantly in glass, maintaining his own studio practice, assisting various renowned glass artists in the Seattle area, and working as a fabricator helping a number of non-glass artists realize their ideas in the medium.
Upon completion of his MFA, Calimpong took a position as a long-term resident at Pottery Northwest. During his residency he engaged in an intense two years of exploration which served as an extension and continuation of his graduate work and also allowed him to reconnect with clay, which was his first material love. After mounting a solo show titled, Stolid, in January 2022, which coincided with the end of his PNW residency, Calimpong moved into a studio in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle where he has continued his explorations.
Calimpong has most recently had solo exhibitions at Das Schaufenster (Seattle), Traver Gallery (Seattle) and at the Jam Factory (Adelaide, AUS). In addition to his studio practice, Calimpong has taught extensively domestically including stops at Pilchuck Glass School, Haystack Mountain School, Penland School of Crafts, Pittsburgh Glass Center, Schack Art Center, Tulsa Glassblowing School, and the University of Washington. In addition, he has taught internationally at Canberra Glassworks (AUS), the Jam Factory (AUS). Calimpong is currently a part time lecturer at the University of Washington and maintains a studio in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle.