Segment #15

Clare Belfrage has spent her career transforming the rhythms, patterns and textures found in the natural world into vitreous vessels. Using techniques achieved through decades of practice, Belfrage produces delicate, translucent leaf-like glass forms that highlight her highly developed skills and meticulous attention to detail. Working with apparent ease with the often-stubborn and erratic material of glass, Belfrage applies layers and layers of fine threads of glass onto blown forms to realise the striking effects for which she has become known.

This tableau of nine works, dating between 2007 and 2017, demonstrates Belfrage’s growth and sophistication in the application of drawn-line work, applied n layers using fine glass threads, known as stringers. By means of this technique, Belfrage creates diffused colours with mesmerising undulating linear patterns to express the rhythms experienced in the natural world. Some of the drawn-line work sits in relief, creating highly textured surfaces, where others are applied so that the pattern work lies under a smooth surface of the blown-glass form.

Rebecca Evans, Curator of Decorative Arts and Design