Miles Van Rensselaer Ancestral Flow Series Bronze & Schott Crystal View I $4500.00	Miles Van Rensselaer Ancestral Flow Series Bronze & Schott Crystal View II $4500.00	Miles Van Rensselaer Ancestral Flow Series Bronze & Schott Crystal View III $4500.00
Miles Van Rensselaer Ancestral Flow Series Double Hands Crystal & Bronze $11,000.00	Miles Van Rensselaer Asmat Elder w/ Tusks Bronze & Schott Crystal View I $3600.00	Miles Van Rensselaer Asmat Elder w/ Tusks Bronze & Schott Crystal View II $3600.00
Miles Van Rensselaer Asmat Elder w/ Tusks Bronze & Schott Crystal View III $3600.00	Miles Van Rensselaer Kifwebe Initiation Mask Bronze & Glass $3500.00	Miles Van Rensselaer Kifwebe Initiation Mask Bronze & Schott Crystal View II $3500.00

Miles Van Rensselaer Biography

 I received my BA from Kenyon College (Sculpture & English) while studying mask making and woodcarving with Javanese, Balinese and Papuan masters through the Council on International Educational Exchange in Indonesia.  I have been consistently making sculpture for 15 years using everything from glass and crystal to bronze and iron, from gold and silver to tooth and bone, from steel, copper and lead to wood, clay, feather and hair.  I’ve been fortunate enough to work - and humbled by working - with and among talented artists from all over the world.  My work is my homage to these people and their vanishing ways of life, my translation of their technique, imagery, idea of “primitive” art into modern Western materials.  I strive to reach others as these archaic cultures have indelibly reached me: beyond the spoken and written word.

Jari-Jari Gelas (Glass Fingers) ~ cast bronze/hot-cast glass ~ dimensions vary.  Glass as metaphor for time & those “fleeting moments” which can escape us all.  Glass is blown and punty-cast into pedestal and wall-mount hands, using as little surface-manipulation as possible.  My first solo show at Heller Gallery, NYC was an installation of this type of work incorporating the hands of all living members of my family. 

Asmat Elder w/Tusks: West Papua, Indonesia ~ cast bronze/cast crystal/blown glass/ fabricated steel.  In the central highlands of West Papua lives a tribe highly skilled farmers and exhibitionist warriors.  Topless Dani women wear grass skirts and carry pigs and babies from their heads while men wear little more than penis gourds, feather-crowns and nose ornaments usually made from pair of long, upwardly curved “babirussa” tusks.  In the alluvial swamplands to the south live the traditionally cannibalistic Asmat.  These now-infamous masters of “primitive” carving adorn themselves with anything from cassowary bone to rhinoceros beetle horn, from batwing bone to opalescent mother of pearl, in dozens of different designs.   I cannot wait to widen my variety beyond the common tusk form and hope to do so as an Energy Xchange Resident!

Kifwebe Initiation Mask: Songe, Congo, Africa ~ cast bronze/blown glass. Inspired by the African mask used in ceremonies which punctuate a boy’s entry into manhood, Kifwebe is an ongoing series.  While wax each begins from the same mold, each varies tremendously upon completion, particularly in the proportional relationship between materials.

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