Bohumil Eliáš Sr.
Czech Republic, 1937 - 2005Silent Inhabitant, 2003
On view
Cast and laminated glass
Dimensions15 1/2 × 14 3/4 × 3 3/4 in. (39.4 × 37.5 × 9.5 cm)
Courtesy of the Isabel Foundation, L2017.38
While in school Bohumil Eliáš, Sr., studied painting and glass. While working in paint he refined his color palette, focusing on vibrant colors. At the same time his fascination with glass began to overshadow his love for paintings. These two passions would combine to form the basis of his artistic style. By 1975 he was laminating cut glass pieces together to create prismatic sculptures. The clear glass panels did not satisfy his love for color so in the early 1990s he began to paint on the individual layers of glass to create a more dynamic surface. The glass panels enabled paint to span space, infusing the artwork with light and allowing it to develop three-dimensionally into imaginative spaces beyond the reality of the object itself.
