Artists
Cali Balles
View artist biographyCali Balles
- Education: Cali Balles is a graduate of the Material Art and Design program at Ontario College of Art and Design, and studied glass at Sheridan College of Crafts and Design. Cali lives and works in downtown Toronto, where she creates sculptural glasswork, as well as commissioned work.
- Price Range: $250 - $1500 CDN
I am fascinated by form. The repeating patterns found in natural forms and in city structures intrigue me, and influence my work. Using photography as a research tool, I document and study these forms at close range. I later attempt to evoke these functional forms in glass; branches, fronds and tendrils become a vocabulary for composition. By working in clear glass, avoiding the use of colour, and utilizing a range of surface textures, the focus on form and structure predominates. By combining various glass techniques such as blown forms, that are lifelike and fluid, with mould blown forms, that are more controlled and rigid, I attempt to illustrate the details of my environment.
This new body of work continues to examine the relationship between nature and the urban environment through glass sculpture, with a new focus on the interpretation of the unseen patterns of city structures and how they interact and coexist with the natural elements of the landscape.
Having grown up in downtown Toronto, the patterns created in man-made structures have often influenced my work. I have become curious about how the patterns of city structures have developed over time to create the urban environment. This was partly driven by my learning of the buried neighbourhoods and hidden rivers that exists beneath Toronto’s streets; one such river runs beneath my home. I came upon this quote:
“The shapes of many early neighbourhoods were defined by ravines and meandering creek beds. Seen as obstacles to development, they were aggressively filled in and their waters relegated to dark pipes underground…
Now these waterways are storm drains and sewers, absorbed into the city’s infrastructure.” - Mathew Borrett, ”Spacing Toronto”
I am intrigued and bewildered by these hidden landscapes, in particular, the intertwining and overlapping of industrial and natural forms. As a means of compiling inspiration, I explored sites of hidden landscapes and unusual industrial patterns. Photographing and pouring over topographical maps reinforced the influence of this imagery in the final work.
