José Chardiet

José Chardiet fled Cuba with his family in 1960 and grew up in New Haven, Connecticut. He studied glassmaking there and at Kent State University in Ohio, and taught for many years at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Chardiet thinks of the glass vessel as a kind of interior, a refuge for the imagination. His sculptural groups---which have been called still lifes in spite of their energy---often evoke human families, undersea creatures, and exotic, otherworldly plants, all acting out dramas of love, sex, and conflict.