Dr. Helen Slater Stokes makes unique contemporary glass sculptures, using techniques developed over 25 years as a sculptor working in glass.
Find out more and view our catalogue of contemporary optical glass sculptures
New Animating Designs
This is one of the current tests being carried out before the start of some new wall mounted works.
These moving images have proved very difficult to make, as they need to be very precise. But they are a work in progress that I hope to refine this year.
What this space for more news!
In the Pink
Contemporary wall Mounted interactive glass sculpture.
These works combine notions of visual spatial perception with current issues around encroachment, distancing and proximity. Titles reference a dialogue around health, social inequalities and overcrowding, by suggesting we consider our perception of space and the space between, as we coexist.
Geometric forms analyse the mathematical quantifiable nature of space, devoid of emotion, as theses virtual, almost holographic, time-based spaces animate and change, in harmony with the observers movement.
In the Pink, Kiln formed glass, 42 x 42 x 6.5 cm
Masterclasses 2024
I’m very excited to be teaching online masterclasses, in kiln formed glass and image, for Warm Glass, via the Glass School in April, August and November, this year.
In addition this year I’m super excited to be teaching a 14 day Masterclass at Bild-Werk, Frauenau, in Germany. As part of their Summer Academy. This course will take place from 29th June to 12th July.
Presenting at The GAS Conference 2024, in Berlin
Another very exciting event for me this year will be presenting at the Glass Art Society (GAS) Conference, in Berlin.
From May 15–18, 2024, the annual GAS conference will invite glass enthusiasts from around the world to discover the vibrant energy of Berlin, Germany. From the sparkling glass panes of the Reichstag Dome to the iconic murals of Berlin’s East Side Gallery, conference attendees will be dazzled by the host city and GAS’s conference program in equal measure.
The conference theme is Berlin: Where Art + Design Meet, focusing on the space where art meets design, the synergy between the two, and the relationships between artists and designers.
March 2023
Horbowy International Glass Competition
The Giant Mountains Museum
Jelenia Góra and Wroclaw, POLAND
My optical glass sculpture ‘Photopic’, has been selected to take part in the Horbowy International Glass Competition, Poland. In the first edition of the Horbowy International Glass Competition there were over 125 applications!
The jury selected 52 participants from 13 countries who qualified for the second stage of the Competition. The laureates of the Horbowy International Glass Competition will be announced by the Jury at the opening of the first exhibition at the the Giant Mountains Museum in Jelenia Góra on the 30th of June 2023.
Among the selected pieces are works by artists from, among others, the USA, Great Britain, Poland, Estonia, Romania, Lithuania, Israel and Japan.
Bullseye Projects-Tg: Transitions in Kiln-Glass
Touring Exhibition
Bellevue Arts Museum, Washington State, USA, January 21st - May 29th 2022.
Pittsburgh Glass Centre, 7th October 2022 - 24th January 2023.
Houston Center for Contemporary Craft - Spring 2023.
My optical glass sculpture ‘In the Pink’, was selected for the Bronze Award, within this exhibition of international contemporary glass makers.
This touring exhibition is Bullseye Glass Co.'s biennial juried competition honoring outstanding contemporary kiln-glass design, architecture, and art.
Tg refers to the glass transition temperature that lies near the center of the region in which the material shifts between behaving like a solid and behaving like a liquid. This metamorphosis embodies the ethos of kiln-glass, the transformation that occurs when glass softens and yields to the fierce heat of the kiln.
In the Pink
‘These works combine notions of visual spatial perception with current issues around encroachment, distancing and proximity. Titles reference a dialogue around health, social inequalities and overcrowding, by suggesting we consider our perception of space and the space between, as we coexist. Geometric forms analyse the mathematical quantifiable nature of space, devoid of emotion, as theses virtual, almost holographic, time-based spaces animate and change, in harmony with the observers movement’.
Helen Slater Stokes
Selected for the British Glass Biennale
British Glass Biennale Exhibition, Ruskin Glass Center, Stourbridge.
26th August - 1st October 2022
My work has been selected for the British Glass Biennale Exhibition, at Stourbridge this year. It’s such an honour!
The exhibition will be part of the International Festival of Glass taking place 26th August- 29th August.
Void, is the piece that has been selected for this incredibly prestigious exhibition, which forms part of the International Festival of Glass, at Stourbridge.
This work is uses traditional kiln-formed glass studio processes, combined with cutting edge digital lenticular image technology and is the result of PhD research completed in 2021, at the Royal College of Art, into 'The Optical Perception of Image in Glass'. Void combines notions of visual spatial perception and physical surface, to question where the material surface of the pictorial plane resides and how we perceive the spatial depth within. The work speaks of control and chaos, drawing on contemporary emotional, social and spatial concerns around proximity, whilst generating an almost meditative animating virtual space controlled by the observer.
New Glass Review 41
I was so pleased to discover that my work ‘Asymmetric Vortex’ was selected for the Corning Museum of Glass’s Glass review 2020.
This piece developed through my PhD research at the Royal College of Art, has been selected as 1 of 100 international glass pieces to feature in The Corning Museum of Glass annual 'New Glass Review 41'. This work was selected from 2,599 submitted works, sent in by 978 artists from 54 countries.
New Glass Review, a flagship publication of The Corning Museum of Glass, is an international survey of contemporary glass. Launched in 1979, New Glass Review has served as an annual benchmark for contemporary glass, documenting the innovation, dexterity, and creativity of artists, designers, and architects working in this challenging material.
Inspired by two landmark exhibitions—New Glass: A Worldwide Survey (1979) and Glass 1959—New Glass Review has documented glass on a global scale and brought unprecedented critical and popular attention to the material, its makers, and designers.
An image of this work will feature in The Corning Museum of Glass’s published catalogue, which surveys glass work from across the globe.
New Glass Review
Work Selected for the Corning Museum of Glass, '‘New Glass Review 41’, 2020
Acuity becomes part of The Imagine Museum’s Collection
The Imagine Museum, St. Petersburg Florida, showcases major works of contemporary American and International art by founding and leading artists in the field of studio glass and art expression.
Spatial landscape inspired works
Ploughed Field II
Static Snowstorm
Pink Tint and Black
Oak Tree
Mini Cast
Neo lavender and Black
Winter Branches
Static Snowstorm
Light Plum and Black.
This work draws inspiration from how we reference and perceive a given space and the changing perceptions within this. The work addresses traditional and contemporary artistic spatial illusionary methods, analysing techniques within drawing, photography, formal sculpture and optical art in order to create what are visually perceived as virtual three dimensional forms in the glass. This work has focused on the creation of the 3D or spatial image and the notion of glass as a facilitator, in working with and challenging our perception of ‘space’.
