Aaron Pexa

American, born 1976

BiographyAaron Pexa is an American artist and architect whose work manifests curiosity and a sense of bewilderment through projection, optics, and appropriated antique objects. His multimedia works and video fracture and reframe everyday environments through the creation of artifacts, sleight of hand actions, and experimental operations. The video work, in particular, captures and manipulates a series of fleeting moments, framing a fantastical narrative while documenting the process by which artifacts are produced.

While many glass artists focus on the finished product, the polished and perfect object, Pexa focuses on the process and the moment of creation. The incandescent quality of light and the reflective effect of glass are captured in the fleeting moments when glass transforms from liquid to solid. Ideas of beauty placed on objects of perceived cultural worth are abandoned as the object is intentionally destroyed, and in exchange, a new fantastical narrative is created. Also, use of mass production molds from the 19th century mixed with manual techniques produce one-of-a-kind glass objects that create a sense of a time gone by, an object that once was pristine but now fades with a fictional romantic history.

Pexa received his MFA in Glass from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2014. He also holds a dual Masters in Architecture and Urban Design from Washington University in Saint Louis, and Bachelors in Studio Art from Carleton College. Prior to studying glass at RISD, Aaron worked as an architect and urban designer in London and New Orleans. In the summer of 2014 he received a travel grant from the Rhode Island School of Design to research glassmaking techniques along Finland’s Glass Trail, and most recently was awarded a Chinese Government Scholarship at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou to study Mandarin and promote cross-cultural exchange. He was a 2015 Fellow at the Creative Glass Center of America at Wheaton Arts in Millville, New Jersey. The Lucent Parlor videos are in the permanent collection of the Museum of American Glass.

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