Aurore Bouter

Glass fuser | Marseille, France

Enchanting and re-enchanting with glass

Aurore specialises in flat glass creations
She combines traditional skills with industrial glass
Her work questions the urban environment and nature

Behind Aurore Bouter’s creations lies a single intention: to re-enchant reality. Through her expertise in flat glass and her mastery of various technical processes, notably eglomised glass and cementation, she aims to offer a new perspective on industrial glass. “Let us take another look at glass. Float glass has become so common that we no longer look at it.” Aurore discovered glass through her first passion, that of gold leaf, and trained at the École Nationale du Verre. Her ongoing research into this material and the way she revisits traditional techniques have helped her emerge her very own know-how. At once poetic and geometric, the glass pieces she creates reflect on her sensitive relationship with light, while also inviting us to wonder: “How do we change our perpetual view of the urban?”

Interview

©gilles_leimdorfer

What are the specific techniques that characterise your work?: I work with eglomised glass, which is glass gilded with gold leaf, on glass tempera and cementation. My singularity as a glassworker truly lies in my research and my raising awareness of this ancient technique. From the very beginning, I saw cementation as an extremely modern process.
What are your main sources of inspiration?: Humans and the urban jungle. I am particularly interested in the relationship between the urban and Nature; in the way we look at things and our position as humans. I often return to this question: what traces will our civilisation leave behind?
What do you enjoy most about your creative process?: Prototyping. I like to think of how the material will take shape, looking for and developing the solution. My work is very empirical. As soon as an idea emerges, I immediately try it out and experiment with the material to find out the feasibility of the idea.
What roles do tradition and innovation play in your approach?: Tradition is expressed by the technique itself, cementation, which dates back to the 13th century. Innovation, as I see it, is how you make a technique your own. Nothing is ever invented, only reinvented. I also enjoy using digital tools which I do not believe compromise the work of the hand, but rather re-enchant it.

Aurore Bouter is a rising star: she began her career in 2020 and she started teaching in 2022