基斯．卡明斯 Keith Cummings

安德魯．布華頓．如是說

基斯．卡明斯的創作《輝映》（Reflect  2017），展示了將玻璃與多種材質結合為一的高超工藝：玻璃、銅、黃銅、錫，透過不同材質與技法結合的成果，如同畫布一般展現不同材質的表面觸感和內部肌理，在透明與不透明、顏色與材質之間產生不同的火花。當光與作品的細節相遇時，我們可以感受到每一刻如同被施展了神奇魔法，逐步、緩慢地向觀者揭示他的思想、材質選擇與創作過程。

卡明斯運用坍融、鑄造、切割與拋光等多重技法，將地質、天體和圖像等深度，模糊又抽象的勾勒在作品表面。如同作品名稱「輝映」，在英文中可作動詞或名詞，具有一種微妙又溫和的提示：光，作為一種光學或心理現象，透過光，沉思冥想，向內探索或向外尋找，再將之「帶回來」用自己的角度，重新詮釋。

這件作品的複雜性，反映窯鑄玻璃的費力、費時、難以處理和不可預測性，也同時有著意外的驚喜及無與倫比的變化性。卡明斯自己也分享道：「窯鑄是一種緩慢的、沒有效率的、有限的、甚至常常令人沮喪的玻璃創作技法……但，它同時也讓人有中獎的興奮，與煉金術般的神秘感。」

Andrew Brewerton said……

Reflect (2017) exemplifies Cummings’ practise of combining glass with metal and other materials in multiple processes – here glass, copper, brass and pewter – giving rise to painterly development of surface and interior qualities of transparency and opacity, colour and texture. Light dwells on revealed and revealing detail, each moment occluding its origins in the slow alchemical exposition of ideas, materials and processes. Slump-casting, casting, cutting and polishing techniques draw and tease to the surface an ambiguous array of geological, celestial and imaginal depths. Its one-word title, ‘Reflect’, might be an English verb or noun, but has the weight of a gentle imperative. Its etymology invokes light as an optical or mental phenomenon, meaning literally ‘to bring back’ turning outwards or inwards through optics or meditation.

The complexity of this artefact reflects upon glass as a kiln-formed fine art medium as laboured, painstaking, intractable and unpredictable. And capable of happy accidents and extraordinary transformations:

Kiln-forming is slow, inefficient, limited and frustrating way of shaping glass…

…it combines the mystique of alchemy with the excitement of a lottery.[1]

[1] Keith Cummings, Techniques of Kiln-formed Glass (1997), p.46…48