from the glassworks: Solaris 5 Painting

NEW GLASSWORKS Between 1997 and 2003, I made a great many installations and sculptures of industrial glass - a medium difficult to handle but unique as to its infinite esthetical possibilities. These works were regrouped and shown as « the glassworks ». The new glassworks that have been created in the course of this year are a logical continuation of the initial series and draw on the technical experience I acquired during that period. REVERSE GLASS PAINTING by Leon Taveling (extract) The technique of reverse glass painting consists in painting the back side of a glass panel which is then reversed so that the mirror image can be viewed through the glass. This art form is known since the Middle Ages. During the 19th century, it became very popular in Bohemia, where local artists used it under the name of « Hinterglasmalerei » for naïve paintings of mostly religious and pastoral motifs. If the traditional form of reverse glass painting is exclusively figurative and executed with elaborate artisanal precision, contemporary artists have usurped the classical technique to create brute work of industrial glass, inspired by minimalism and arte povera. Conform to this interpretation, Vles’ glassworks freely play with light, transparency and reflexions to create an abstract and luminous oeuvre. The Solaris series are mosaics of pieces of broken glass, glued on wood panels and inserted, intarsia-like, into an acrylic-painted wooden support. At first sight, the complementary paintings on wood and glass seem to merge into an overall geometric pattern. But as the glass part is still subject to exterior influences like light and reflections, the osmosis of painting and environment continues to create new images, depending on the time of the day and the place where the picture is hanging.