Glass with Class – Smoke Paintings by Jim Dingilian

These smokey bottles are the creations of artist Jim Dingilian. Coating the insides of the bottles with soot is the easy part, brushing it away with tools set on dowels is the hand-cramping part, recognizing smoke/soot as a medium is simply a stroke of genius. His art has been described as “dripping with a sense of suburban decay” but I rather like it. The scene inside the bottles changes with every twist. Using ‘found’ objects like old bottles is a deliberate move by the artist. He said: “When found by the sides of roads or in the weeds near the edges of parking lots, empty liquor bottles are artifacts of consumption, delight, or dread. As art objects, they become hourglasses of sorts, their drained interiors now inhabited by dim memories.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

See more of his work here.