Studio Sunday: Tony Feher
Tony Feher was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and lived throughout the United States before acquiring his B.F.A. in Texas, then finally settling in New York. Feher was well known for his assemblage works that mashed together found objects and lowbrow materials to create delicate, lightly humorous installations.
The artist’s love for working with glass and plastic vessels is clear in these photos of his studio. In the above photo, the studio looks sort of like an average garage, with a very homey, unfinished aesthetic to it. The vast collection of empty food and drink jars and bottles makes the artist’s studio look like a recycling plant – which, in a way, it was.
Feher often used colored liquids or other materials to fill these otherwise unremarkable vessels. It’s amazing to see the difference between the objects in the raw space of the studio versus how they look against the clean, white walls of the gallery. While the building blocks of Feher’s works look almost like trash in his studio, once put together and placed, they take on a really beautiful yet transient quality.
I can imagine that the artist’s appreciation for the impermanent nature of his work created a particular tone in the studio. Not being so precious about the finished products would probably promote a really fun, experimental mood within the workspace. It seems that the artist kept the space in a continual state of messiness and creation.
Feher passed away in June of 2016, leaving behind a legacy of works that are beautiful and artistically important, though accessible at the same time.
