FROM LIGHT TO LINE

As a child, I had more attention for the stained-glass windows than I was listening to what was told in the front when I accompanied my parents to church. The sunlight filtered in a special way the transparency: glass would fascinate me for life.

On the road from fascination to creation, I was guided by some extraordinary teachers. Bavo Tiebos took me under his wings in the early 1990s in the Monumental Arts course at Mechelen Academy. After seven years, including specialisation, I continued for another two years at the Institute for Arts and Crafts in the same city, followed by a number of project workshops, again at the academy.

For about ten years now, I have been working in my own studio, using various techniques. Stained glass remains my first love. I enjoy looking for a modern twist to this age-old technique time and again. I also use techniques such as fusing, slumping, kiln casting and pâte de verre in my glass practice. In my daily life, I am quite steady and thus rather an atypical zodiac twin, but perhaps the fickleness attributed to my zodiac sign manifests itself in the great diversity of what I create as a glass artist. I create glass windows, sculptures as well as bowls.

My work is purified and sober. I play with lines, stripes and layers. This symbolic layering is my response to current events in which I sometimes find the nuance lacking. Although I always opt for simplicity, I do make radical choices in terms of colour and form.

I work on commission and I also make my own free art. I like to know with whom and where my work will end up. So I enjoy taking the time to get to know clients and visit them at home.