How would you define what you do?
I am a glass artist who makes time-based experiential interactive sculptures, that explore a new visual language for glass and challenge our optical perception of three-dimensional space both physically and conceptually. I push the artistic and optical possibilities of what glass can do.
How are tradition and innovation expressed in your work?
My work addresses traditional and contemporary artistic spatial illusionary methods, analysing techniques within the drawing, photography, formal sculpture, and optical art in order to create what is visually perceived as virtual three-dimensional forms in the glass.
©Helen Slater Stokes
Why did you choose to be a glass artist?
For as long as I can remember I have thought of myself as an artist and been driven to find ways to keep making and pushing my ideas forward. Glass offers me great challenges alongside fascinating artistic outcomes, it means that I am always learning and constantly motivated to exploit this amazing material.
How would you describe a well made object?
It would be a perfectly finished piece. It would have a high degree of finish, via a mastery and understanding of the material. Handmade objects each have their own character and details, these are not machine fabricated, and as such the hand of the maker leaves his or her mark, making each work unique.