Fresh out of N.Y.U. and squatting in Alphabet City, sculptor/painter James Ciosek cut his teeth as a metal working artisan for Flickinger Glassworks, Pier 41, Brooklyn in 1994. He then spent over a decade in the Midwest studying blacksmithing and running his own ornamental iron business. He focused his energies on sculpture in 2004 after a near sellout of his first solo gallery show. Ciosek moved to Houston in 2006, and is making a mark as a hands-on mixed media sculptor. A craftsman successfully leaping over to the Fine Art world with a hands-on practice, his productions include solo exhibitions of the buckshot textured “Constructed Chaos” series at Redbud Gallery, a large scale installation, “Human Hamster Wheel,” at Lawndale Art Center, “Opalescent Order,” and “Moth to the Flame” at Zoya Tommy Gallery, all in Houston, Texas. Arriving geographically full circle with New York City in 2013, Ciosek was awarded a two month Visiting Artist Fellowship at Urban Glass in Brooklyn. For this past year, he has explored abstract paintings rendered in self-bifurcating impasto.