Karli Sears has worked with glass for ten years, using blown glass as a sculptural medium. After getting over an aversion to lighting matches, she is now at home creating lyrical forms from a sensual material amidst the industrial heat and noise of the glass studio.
Her work draws on the patterns, colours and forms of the natural world and uses the ephemeral qualities of glass to suggest, in an object, a sense of life. Compelled to create multiples, to repeat gestures, she assembles the results into complex structures. Often they are evocative of the exquisite form of a magnified seed pod, perhaps, or some strange undersea creature.
She involves her interest in textiles and jewellery by bringing a range of techniques and materials to her work.
Karli is a graduate of the Glass program at Sheridan College, and has since been a resident artist in the Craft Studio at Harbourfront Centre, and at the Living Arts Centre where she currently flameworks, blows glass and occasionally sneaks into the textiles studio.
In 2006, Envelope, a glass and felt sculpture, was acquired by the Corning Museum of Glass and published in the significant book 25 Years of New Glass Review. Her work has garnered many grants, awards and scholarships, and is currently represented in Toronto by the Sandra Ainsley Gallery.
She lives in Guelph, Ontario with her partner, a sound artist, and their daughter.
