#HTE

Kinetic Cast Glass Sculptures by Heike Brachlow

German glass artist Heike Brachlow finds inspiration in architecture and geometry, creating cast glass sculptures that rely heavily on their shape, which is often that of a cylinder or cube. Works in her Theme and Variation series seem to impossibly balance as they subtly curve upwards, individual cubes colored with the same mixture of oxides at increasing amounts. Her pink work, seen below, contains neodymium oxide which causes it to change color in different lights, shifting from a pink to green hue depending on which light the glass sculpture is displayed under.

In addition to having disparate color properties, many of the pieces can be taken apart and rearranged, inviting her audience to create unique stacks of their own, and perhaps mix-up the provided gradient. Other works, like those in her cylindrical Waiting series, are formed in a way that allows the top component to spin effortlessly on its base. Her On Reflection series also has a similar kinetic quality, with twirling glass pieces that appear more like spinning tops than silos.

Brachlow discovered her love for glass while working as a glassblower in a small studio in Rotorua, New Zealand. She received her BA from the University of Wolverhampton and MA and PhD from the Royal College of Art in London and regularly teaches glass blowing classes at the Corning Museum of Glass and other institutions. You can find her work in the collections of the Glasmuseum Hentrich in Dusseldorf, Germany, Glasmuseum alter Hof Herding in Coesfeld, Germany, the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Washington and more.