Vaz Zastera is a master optician and has worked in the high tech industry for the past 20 years fabricating precision optical components for research and development as well as the telecommunication, aerospace and medical industries. He has now transferred this skill into creating spectacular multi layered cold glass sculptures and jewelry.
Vaz’s glass art career began by experimenting with small optical components that didn’t meet spec, and creating optic glass jewelry from them. He experimented with different ways of organizing the diachroically coated pieces and various cutting and layering techniques.
Many of the pictures of Vaz’s jewelry reminded him of buildings, unique architecture, and he began to wonder what these would look like if made on a much larger scale. He began to create scale models of architecturally influenced buildings using crystal.
Vaz is continually exploring and developing new techniques to create theses unique works of art. Due to the care and precision put into the creation of these larger individual pieces, they can take anywhere from 3 months to a year to complete. The highly polished crystal pieces produce stunning optical effects of reflected and transmitted light.
“I have always been intrigued with how fragile and simple glass can seem, yet when laminated, ground and polished how it becomes strong and complex. I love the inherent beauty in the finished optical glass and the way the light and colour reflects off these pieces providing a changing sense of depth and unparallel clarity”.
Vaz also creates contemporary paintings and instead of using canvas, paper, or wood, he breaks tradition and utilizes galvanized sheet metal to receive the high tech enamel paints. This gives each painting an underlying fortitude that is a Zartwerks trademark. This material combination provides smoothness that results in unique interactions, creating numerous dimensions and multi-faceted images. A composition can appear quite simple at first glance, but upon closer inspection, becomes far more complex, allowing several levels of interpretation.
Please call Zartwerks Studio to view the most recent optic sculptures, paintings and jewlery.
