Camille Jacobs

Glass fuser

©Camille Jacobs

Stained glass in three dimensions

Camille works with layers of float glass shaped into coloured vessels
Her inspirations include nature, science, art history and photography
She uses traditional stained glass painting techniques

“My goal is to achieve a perfect balance between shape, dimension, medium and colour,” says Camille Jacobs, who lives and works in Keispelt, Luxembourg. Through a long process of experimentation she developed her passion for glass, a complex and sometimes unpredictable medium. Camille studied stained glass at the Saint-Luc Institute of Fine Arts in Ghent, Belgium. Her work quickly evolved from traditional stained glass panels to three-dimensional objects, often with geometrical influences. Her works have been exhibited in galleries and shows across Europe and as far away as Japan.

Interview

©Camille Jacobs

©Camille Jacobs

What is float glass?: It is a sheet of clear glass, normally used to make windows. Each glass sheet is my canvas. My works are composed of multiple layers of float glass. They are partly sprayed and reverse painted, and finally fired.
What technique do you use to create your vases?: Colour is applied to multiple layers of clear glass with the silkscreen method or enamels. The layers are assembled and fused in the kiln to obtain a large homogenous slab, which is slumped to the required shape, cut and polished.
Where do you find inspiration?: Nature, the environment, science, art history and photography. Voltaïc Seasons, for example, is a series of triangular vessels representing the four seasons in a year marked by daylight and weather, and endangered by global warming.
Can you describe a memorable moment in your career?: Receiving the Naoto Yokoyama juror’s prize at the 2010 International Exhibition of Glass in Kanazawa, Japan for the series Homage to Johannes Itten. It was inspired by “the art of colour”, based on a treatise on the colour system by the Swiss expressionist painter.

Camille Jacobs is an expert artisan she began her career in 1990