Studio Gerrit Schreurs

In honour of the UN International Year of Glass, Museum JAN presents the exhibition Barbara Nanning – Moving Stillness. The exhibition features the most recent work of glass artist Barbara Nanning (1957). In her three-dimensional sculptures, she always combines tradition and innovation. She has created new, inventive techniques in collaboration with the most experienced glassblowers in the Czech Republic. The innovative architectural and interior design studio Atelier Tomas Dirrix has created a refreshing 3D exhibition design.

Tradition and experiment

In addition to the traditional techniques that form the basis of her artistic practice, experimentation plays a key role in Nanning's work. In all of her work, she tries to find new ways to capture colour and light in the glass. This also applies for her new series Chimaera, a co-production with the Czech grinder Aleš Zvěřina, in which she works with anna green glass. Under ultra-violet light, this green coloured glass has a fluorescent effect in the dark. The sawn and cut facets in the anna green glass create numerous optical effects and add depth to the work. For her latest series Byzantium, Nanning experiments with gilded glass threads that she melts into patterns inspired by Byzantine culture.

Barbara Nanning, Chimaera, 2020

Moving Stillness

Nanning always starts from a circle, a point of stillness, which she then develops further in the liquid glass. This results in all kinds of organic forms, based on crystals, plants and micro-organisms. She tries to capture the movement of nature and bring it to a standstill; a moment in time captured in a glass object.

Barbara Nanning

After graduating from the Amsterdam Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Barbara Nanning gained recognition for her ceramic works. In Leerdam, she worked with glass for the first time, a material until then unknown to the artist. From that moment on, glass became the exclusive material she focused on. She very quickly achieved international fame in glass art and was introduced to sophisticated techniques, especially in the Czech Republic. Her versatile body of work can be found in many museum and private collections in the Netherlands and abroad.