Make Way for the Journey
fused glass
12" x 12"
2008
12" x 12"
2008
Alice Benvie Gebhart
East Greenwich,RI
www.ABGebhart.comEast Greenwich,RI
Alice Benvie Gebhart grew up in a family that valued her artistic talents and abilities. Her father, Chris Benvie, a prolific New England Impressionist artist, introduced her to the art of painting at a young age. She graduated from Rhode Island College in her native Rhode Island, with an undergraduate degree in art and a graduate degree in education. Working as a high school art teacher, cooperating teacher for Rhode Island School of Design and adjunct faculty member at her alma mater, she has been a professional artist and art educator since 1980.
Winning regional awards for her paintings, Gebhart worked alternately in oils and stained glass for many years. In 2004, she attended a workshop in glass painting with Peter McGrain and was inspired to combine stained glass and glass painting. Her work developed and changed until she discovered the rich and vivid properties of fused glass. A most recent class with noted fused glass artist Roger Thomas in 2007 gave her new ideas and inspiration. Gebhart’s experimentation with kiln-fired glass has grown into something that stands out from the norm.
Gebhart's artistic inspiration comes primarily from the way light and color react with glass. Her subject matter is the everyday scene one may drive by or pass without notice. Working off the sketches she has created, Gebhart cuts and layers colored glass, specifically made for glass fusing, in a kind of collage. This is fired in a glass kiln, often 3-5 times to obtain the desired effect. Gebhart’s approach to the glass is reminiscent of the crayon scratchboards one would create as a child. She starts with a collage of color, not from crayons but with glass. After fusing, defining and fusing again, she hides the brilliance with traces of black using carbon oxide. Scratching through the lines of black to the luminosity underneath Gebhart reveals the true beauty of the medium and the artist’s interpretation. Much like the fauvist painter Henri Matisse, her subject is translated through the use of dramatic color and light. Matisse used cut paper and paint to reinterpret nature; Gebhart creates art with vibrant, painterly glass.
Gebhart is a member of Glass Art Society; International Guild of Glass Artists, National and New England Chapter; American Craft Council; Providence Art Club, Art League of Rhode Island and Newport Art Museum and Art Association. Educational foundation memberships include National Art Education Association (NAEA) and its Rhode Island chapter (RIAEA). Recent exhibitions include Design within Reach: Providence Art Windows (2008), Art League of RI Annual Exhibit at Bristol Museum (2008) and Attleboro Arts Museum Auction (2008). Recent publications include Art Calendar and Glass Craftsman Magazine.