Warren Carther Studio

Biography

Warren Carther’s inventive, large scale work has placed him at the forefront of the contemporary glass sculpting movement.

His work is not easily categorized as his concerns lay equally with painterly ideas of surface, as with three dimensional form and structure. 

His work negotiates the line between abstraction and representation and is informed by various elements from nature and the densely built environments of human urbania. These works emerge from the social and cultural context in which they are placed. He adopts a spectrum of collaborative strategies and methods of enquiry that result in ideas that evolve in several directions. His ideas are based in creation of syntax within the spatial context of the architecture.

A strong believer in art that needs to live in the real world. Carther wants viewers to experience his works in their everyday lives.

Since his professional art practice began in 1980, he has produced more than one hundred site specific installations world-wide.  

Carther's passion for architecture and a fascination with light, colour, form and scale have driven his obsession with glass.  That obsession led him to study glass blowing with one of the founders of the American Studio Glass Movement, Marvin Lipofsky, at the California Collage of the Arts. 

Carther loved the process of blowing glass but upon graduating from CCA, he realized that his was a different vision. What he visualized was not possible at the end of a blowpipe. He wanted to work with glass on a much larger scale. 

To realize that vision, he has developed many processes.  He currently uses industrial tools to grind, cut, colour, carve and laminate glass. The combined techniques allow him to achieve unique form, significant strength and scale in his sculptures.

Carther creates his work in his Winnipeg-based studio with a team of skilled assistants.  He produces sculpture that can be assembled and installed virtually anywhere in the world.

Carther has been privileged to work with internationally renowned architects.  His artwork is featured at five international airports including the Charles de Galle Airport in Paris.  His sculpture can also be found in other significant buildings including the Canadian Embassies in in Tokyo and London.