Fredrik Nielsen
1977, Sweden

Neilsen has also incorporated live music and acrobatics whilst sculpting his glass to explore new ideas and ways of bringing his glass ideas to fruition. Inspiration comes from an array of popular cultures: music, videos, performance and graffiti, the latter literally informing his glass with the use of car paint. The kinetic energy that is used to control and form the hot glass is recaptured by the artist in the fleeting moment of spraying the surface, an act of essentially reclaiming the glass after it has cooled and change colour of its own accord. The paint not only unifies and homogenises the exterior but also acts to smooth out and soften the torn and broken edges, these may become less imperfect but they are still very much moments of the haphazard.
Neilsen first studied glass at the Orrefors Glass School in Sweden and then went on to the Pilchuch Glass School in Washington and the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm. He has also been the Artist-in-Residence at the Corning Museum of Glass, in the USA.
Artworks by the artist