Narcissus Vase by Marieta Tedenacová

I produce all of my artworks in hotshops and small workshops in North Bohemia, which is one of the last regions in the world where the tradition of hand blowing and glass making of the highest quality is preserved since the Middle Ages and is newly part of the UNESCO World Heritage since 2023.

The inner shape, which was created by a special technique of pouring liquid silver into a double walled glass, is surrounded by a broken shell of the external opaque vase. The exterior shapes were painted with contemporary portraits of people we meet every day – laughing, blowing a bubble-gum bubbles, swimming, sending a kiss… I broke these painted shapes with a hammer to achieve the fragmentation. This effect makes a penetration of the painted parts with the reflection of reality possible. The blending of two layers of time happens.
Glass painting is a technically demanding technique different from painting on canvas, it is about precision. I wanted to combine precision with a drastic gesture of breaking the painting after being painted many days and fired in a kiln. Breaking resembles a gesture of action painting and is very unusual for glass as a material.

Each piece of the Narcissus collection was created in a unique vase color combination and each painted motif exists also only once.

Author: Marieta Tedenac
Dimensions: Ø 28 x 39 (h) cm
Material: Silvered double walled glass, with handblown, broken and glued glass, painted with a kiln fired glass color