University of Sunderland

Jeffrey Sarmiento

Jeffrey Sarmiento was recently appointed Reader in Glass at the National Glass Centre at the University of Sunderland. A Filipino-American artist, he holds an MFA in Glass from the Rhode Island School of Design. His research has led him to work widely in the US and Europe, having been awarded Fellowships to UrbanGlass in New York, the Creative Glass Centre of America in New Jersey, and a Fulbright to Denmark. He was also a finalist for the Louis Comfort Tiffany Award and the Bombay Sapphire Prize. He is represented by Bullseye Gallery in the US and has work in permanent collections such as the Speed Museum in Kentucky, GlasmuseetEbeltoft in Denmark and Sunderland Museums and Winter Gardens. His most recent project is a 600kg glass map, permanently housed in the new Museum of Liverpool.

Research Interests

Sarmiento is programme leader for MA glass, teaches glassblowing and print for glass and ceramics, and is a personal tutor for the Fine Art Foundation programme.

He leads leads two specialist areas in Glass and Ceramics: print and digital waterjet cutting. In these areas, he supervises training for research students and, through the International Institute for Research in Glass (IIRG), manages special projects with artists looking to use glass in their work.

Research Activities

Jeffrey Sarmiento combines the graphic image in glass to create artworks that are inspired by specific cultural contexts. Elements of participant observation, material culture study and mapping inform expressions of ethnicity as sources of imagery and form. Soviet-era social housing in the Baltic States, an ethnographic museum collection in Sunderland, and a cultural map of Liverpool have been the most recent sites for exploration. New artworks, displayed in museum and gallery contexts, expose narratives in each cultural context through layered, printed images in glass.