TIHG DECOR

it’s hard to believe that the brittle material glass can be sculpted and moulded into incredible works of art. TIHG presents four contemporary glass artists who shatter the boundaries of the craft

Adding maths to your living space

SHWETA VYAS

With a love for colour and intricate detail, Shweta’s glass works are vibrant, ethereal and imaginative. She believes in the healing influences of colour and art. Through her glass work she aims to connect people with their inner child and to bring some vibrancy and joy into their lives. Shweta says, “Glass has become my material of choice, because I just love the richness and lustre it gives to my creations. Working on glass with liquid glass colours needs lots of patience and dedication. It also has to be very precise because unlike paper and canvas, glass is a transparent base and everything painted on one side is easily reflected on the other side of the glass. So along with creating a design one also learns to be precise and persistent, be focused and be steady.” For the future Shweta hopes to get into conducting workshops for glass art lovers, and teach them all the different techniques that she has learned and incorporated in her work with years of practice and experience. She also plans to exhibit more in public, especially solo.

VIJAY KOWSHIK

Vijay Kowshik’s restorations in stained glass is a highly skilled art. Vijay mentions, “Before starting the restoration a lot of research is involved to find the origins of the work, the techniques employed at that point of time, the assessment of glass and various test pieces to ascertain and finalise the process. The removal is done very carefully as the pieces are old and fragile.” Vijay makes an outline diagram on tracing to mark the various pieces of glass. The panel is then dismantled after marking the glass pieces to match the diagram and then removing the lead cames. After detailed cleaning of the glass pieces and remaking the ones that are destroyed the process of reassembly starts with new lead cames which are joined and soldered in a very systematic manner. On completion of assembly, the panel is sealed with a sealant so as to make it waterproof and stable. Vijay works with different kinds/grades of glass for getting different effects and results. Moreover, he likes to use a lot of scrap glass to give it new life and shape. Vijay says, “I believe that glass is indestructible in the true sense of the word and can take different shapes at different times depending on the creator. The techniques I work in are stained glass, fused glass, slumped glass, cast glass, patte de verre, and blown glass. What keeps me going is the joy that I derives from the process of creating.”

NANDINI DATTA

Nandini took up art glass in the year 2000 and set up her first studio in North Delhi. Later, she moved to Goa and set up her independent studio in a quaint village. Nandini says, “My inspiration came from visiting the churches in Kolkata at an early age of ten years. The sunlight passing through coloured glass had magical effect on my senses. The beauty of the stained glass was etched in my mind as I grew up, always wanting to know how to paint with glass and create beautiful pieces of art.” As for medium, she uses glass both in cold and hot form. Her techniques include – stained glass in copper foil and lead technique, grisaille painting on glass, glass casting, glass blowing and glass mosaics. As for inspiration she mentions, “My inspiration comes from different things that keep me going. I am obsessed with art and art books, and collect art books and exotic curios. I also get inspired by nature and the sea. At the moment, I am very much inspired by different cultures: Mexican ornaments, Mayan masks, and Andy Warhol’s portraits of women.”

ATUL BAKSHI

Atul’s work has acquired the quality of the seer’s crystal ball. As a viewer you’ll spot first the colour, the form, the dazzling brilliance but then, as you go deeper in, the onion layers of sensory experience melt away and what remains in culmination is pure experience…. or pure subjectivity. Atul does not reveal a world; he actually holds up a mirror to one’s aesthetic and spiritual realities. He opens a door not just to another kind of perception, but to a path to the deepest recesses of one’s inner consciousness… revealing the very structure of one’s mind. Atul says, “It’s been a long journey. Seeking initially to comprehend the essence of form in its constituent miniscule elements when I constructed the intricate church panels of stained glass; exploring the dynamic interplay between colour, form and light as interpreted by the refractive quality of glass when I sculpted the abstracts; seeking the middle passage that lies unrevealed between the ephemeral wispiness of crystal and the intense solidity inherent in the opacity of pate de crystal; I am a seeker, a restless explorer, and a student of the myrid variety of the manifest. Today, I am transformed from seeker to seer.” About his glass art he mentions, “Unlike a painting, which can sit on a display indefinitely and with which an artist can interact very slowly and very deliberately over a long period of time, slowly painting as he goes along, a glass artist pulls molten glass from the furnace and has 30 seconds in which to create after which the glass cools and can be worked no more. There is a zen like quality to this work, deliberation and thought do not create art: a magical moment of spiritual intensity are frozen in glass in a flurry of flying hands and then, something has been said.”