Hello and welcome to our Studio/Gallery and our online Art Shop. We hope you enjoy your visit. We are Alex Gordenkov and Alex Evanov, artists who are living and working on Madeira Island, Portugal.
.
We have been working with art glass (using glass fusing techniques) since 2008. However, please note we also work with ceramics, and leather in our artworks. All artworks are created personally by Alex Gordenkov or Alex Evanov, but often are a result of collaborative processes by both artists to create pieces for the gallery. As such, all works represented on this website were created by us.
We always love to invent something new in our сreative work, and in the gallery you will find artworks amalgamating different materials such as coloured glass, stoneware clay, leather, wood, metal. It is almost a Baroque revival!
For those visitors not used to stoneware, the following gives you some information about the process involved in the creation our artworks.
For the creation of our sculptural artworks we choose and maintain loyalty to the use of stoneware clays for all our works, Why?, you may ask, especially as stoneware is much more difficult to work with. In the kiln baking process, these stoneware clays fire to a much higher temperature (1200-1300 degrees Celsius) than ordinary clays used in other ceramic earthenware. The higher the temperature the harder the material becomes and the more resilient and resistant it is to damage, decay etc. It is also heavier. On the “down” side, stoneware is more expensive as a material, more difficult to model, more costly to bake and suffers a higher percentage of failure in its making than other cheaper clays. Stoneware is not a newly discovered process, but has a long traditional history in the Decorative Arts and much prized by collectors and art-lovers the world over.
The process of creating a collection begins with cogitation and deliberation at conception. Having made some preliminary sketches the ensuing discussions about design/architectural details of projects (such as with our tiny houses-lanterns, for example) or features of characters in human or animal sculpture are an essential part of our collaboration to produce artworks that are finally approved by, and thus totally satisfy, our collective aesthetics.
After discussions and decisions made, it is time for starting to work the modeling of the clay. During the process of creating the features of face and emotions of each figure, (sometimes incorporating unexpected, unplanned, details that emerge at this stage) there begins to appear each sculpture`s persona which gradually acquires its individuality. The modeling of a definitive sculpture can take time - from several days to well over a month.
When each artwork is modeled completely it is left to dry for between 2-3 and even 5 weeks – an essential period of time before the first `firing` in the kiln can be attempted.
After its first firing, the next stage of the creative process is hand painting using special high-temperature paints called engobes. (For the technically minded of you, engobes are very much like slip but are formulated using fritted material which reduces shrinkage. The use of engobes can actually be traced all the way back to 3000 BC!) The body of each figurine gains colour and tone, gets hair, decoration such as tattoos and when the eyes are painted the sculpture becomes alive. Only then can it receive its protective glaze.
Painted and glazed figurines go back to our kiln again to be fired at temperature 1200-1300 degrees Celsius. Depending on the creative purpose the artwork can require one, two or three firings to achieve our intentions.
But believe, every figure receives and deserves our loving attention !
