“The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.” — Dorothea Lange
The traditional film camera has all but disappeared from the contemporary landscape. It sits as an analogue relic from a bygone era, but also serves as a critical historic object, as an evolutionary pivot, which ushered us into our current image-obsessed world. By casting vintage film cameras as hollow forms within a solid block of glass, Hershman is highlighting the technology’s lost physicality, the invisible ‘magic’ of the craft based photographic process and the camera’s role in transmuting our visual perception of the world.
We are delighted to introduce Amercian glass artist Josh Hershman to Masterworks Gallery. Josh began working with glass at 17. He is a graduate of the craft and design program at Sheridan College in Ontario, Canada; and has a BFA with distinction from the California College of the Arts in Oakland, California, and an MFA from Alfred University in New York.
Josh’s work has received numerous awards and was included in the 2021 Toyama International Glass Exhibition in Japan, Berengo Studio’s Glass Stress exhibition at Milles Garden Museum in Stockholm Sweden, the Museum of Glass’s first LGBTQ+ exhibition titled Transparency, and Young Glass 2017 which traveled throughout Europe.
His work has been accepted into the permanent collection of the Museum of Glass in Tacoma Washington, the Ebeltoft Museum in Denmark, and the National Liberty Museum in Philadelphia. Hershman has been invited to participate in several artist-in-residence programs including; North Lands Creative Glass in Scotland, D&L Art Glass in Colorado, the Appalachian Center for Craft in Tennessee, and Southern Illinois University in Illinois. Hershman has taught his craft extensively, and currently lives and works in Los Angeles, California.We are excited to be able to showcase a new suite of works by Josh made while he conducted a residency across Aotearoa earlier this year. We encourage you to come in and view, a treasure for glass and camera collectors alike.