Glass certainly has some desirable properties that have attracted artists for centuries. Ever since stained glass first appeared in cathedrals, they’ve always fascinated people. Although not many people would like to work with glass, it’s versatile to a great extent. It can be cut, blown, illuminated, cast, filled with neon, and flameworked. The artists have been exploring various possibilities of glass in recent times.
Even the latest technologies have been utilized to create marvelous pieces of glass art. They include 3D printing and a few other technologies. Here are some of the artists who are well-known for their fantastic creations of glass art:
1. Thaddeus Wolfe
Wolfe creates his colorful pieces of glass art using plaster-silica molds. He realized long back that shaping glass freehand in a glassworker’s room didn’t give him the desired control. The artist realized that plaster-silica molds can be destroyed during the cutting and polishing of glass.
Instead of working across different materials, Wolfe chose to learn the craft of glass and remain faithful to it. According to him, the material is both challenging and inspiring. It seems to have many limitations, but also possesses endless possibilities.
2. Amber Cowan
Her pieces of glass art either have a gentle gradient or they’re completely uniform in color. Cowan uses deadstock and vintage scrap from the glass factories to creates exuberant sculptures. They sprout from a table or wall like the corals. She recycles the material, which allows her to know the history of the industry of pressed glass. It also enables her to engage with her audience’s personal histories.
Many among her audience recognize the pieces or colors in her works. It is because their parents or grandparents had collected pressed glass. She gets old or broken pieces of glass objects from different parts of the country. Cowan then uses these glass pieces in her sculptures.
3. Flavie Audi
The glassworks of Audi appear like ‘fluid rocks’. Blown glass, precious metals, and pigment are used to make these series of blobs. Many among her audience wonder how an object can be so rigid despite appearing fluid. Audi’s blobs seem to come alive in her video work. It was titled ‘Landscapes of Mass Replication’. She had collaborated with the artist Samantha Lee for this work.
Audi is also exploring 3D modeling and rapid prototyping besides this video work. What truly interests her is how one can combine traditional hand-making techniques with new technologies. She constantly explores the possibilities of creating new forms of glass sculptures with such tools.
4. Bryan McGovern Wilson
Wilson’s projects often involve integration of glass into performances. He uses the material for exploring the connections that exist between science and alchemy. His works are based on the premise that an advanced technology is just like magic. For ‘Trinity Pilgrimage’, which was the title of his 2009 performance, he traveled to the Trinity Nuclear Test site.
He went there dressed as Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer. This nuclear physicist was among the ones responsible for creating the atomic bomb. The purpose of his visit was to find and collect a radioactive type of glass called trinitite. This visit resulted in his ‘Trinitite Reliquary’ series.
