Born in 1973 under the cold November skies of Pennsylvania, Gregory Nangle first began making sculpture at the tender age of two when he began experiments with the family clocks and radios. Gregory went on to study glass at the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia. He also attended the University of Hartford Art School where he met his first glass mentor, Mark Ferguson. While at Hartford Gregory built his first metal casting furnace and illegally ran metal pours after hours in the school’s sculpture department. After discovering the joy of inducing metal into its liquid state, Gregory became focused on marrying the two new materials on his palette. The love of creation led Gregory to pursue his own studio, which he established in a post-apocalyptic neighborhood in Philadelphia. Outcast Studios was born and it is here that Gregory has had the chance to research and develop his own sculpture. Gregory has recently formed a non-profit glass studio called P.I.P.E. and is developing a residency program for artists. His work can be found in galleries throughout the U.S. and Canada.
Nangle’s marriage of glass and metal comes from a fascination with liquidising, pouring, and re-solidifying the material — reformatting appearance and objectivity to his whim. ‘The Idea of the Electric Lightbulb Sinks In’ appropriates the form of the lightbulb as a familiar but disruptive vessel, the realism and trompe l’ceil mimicry of each bulb in the stack set against the strange and uncertain material placed inside, and precarious overall amassed structure. Nangle seeks to question objects for which we take for granted — his series of works in this realm inserting bubble wrap, packing material or even glowing elemental gases into glass as an ongoing investigation of hidden and unacknowledged spaces.
