Glass Eats Light (Glas Äter Ljus)

A FILM ABOUT ART GLASS AND GLASS BLOWING

The roots of Swedish glass extends from Germany and Italy, but what is remarkable is how Swedish glass blowers and designers have transferred that knowledge into their very own artistry. Swedish glass is unique. It combines tradition and fantasy and is based on a very close collaboration between designers and master glass blowers.

Bertil Vallien has become known over much of the world for his sand moulds. His mysterious heads of glass are well known to collectors and Bertil Vallien is represented at the foremost art museums in the US, Europe and Japan. He is a master of sand casting. He has a technical brilliance few can equal. The artistic theme “Heads” originated in a newspaper article about a young woman who fell unconscious in an accident and remained so throughout most of her adult life, awakening only in her forties. Dreamlike, ominous and mysterious, the heads stand on pillars of stone, or rest on the floor, inviting us to look into a hidden world.

Bertil Vallien is Sweden’s best-known artist and a groundbreaking figure of Swedish glass art.

Bertil Vallien works with his team of glass blowers at Åfors glassworks. The film team followed Bertil Vallien’s work during two years.

In 2001 Bertil Vallien became the first Swede to receive the highly prestigious VISIONARIES award, which is given out each year by the American Craft Museum to honour the leading artistic visionaries.