carol cohen’s layered glass sculpture

Stacks of painted panes of glass capture images of objects that we expect to reach out and touch: telephones, teapots, shoes. But we can not touch them because they are merely illusions of three dimensional objects and the images magically change and shift as the viewer moves around the assemblage.

While developing the technique in 1982, Carol Cohen discovered that ordinary window glass provided the best ‘canvas’ for her work, allowing the most light to shine through the sculptures. Read Cohen’s fascinating description of how she does it here and several reviews of the award winning artist’s unusual work here.

Much of the imagery I chose involved objects one would want and expect to touch, such as telephones, wineglasses and cups, to establish a tension between the touchableness of the actual object and the non-tangibility of the image painted on the layered sheets of glass.

When she figured out how to space and stack the layers vertically, the sculptures got bigger. Colorful. Mysterious. Fluid.

via Toby Goldsmith