Kaja Upelj

Glass sculptor

©Ester Segarra

Communicating through glass

Kaja's work challenges the perception of glass as cold and rigid
She has developed an original way to capture luminosity in glass
Her methods and materials are expensive and highly toxic

Kaja Upelj is a Slovenian artist living and working in London. Since completing her master's at the Royal College of Art, Kaja has won numerous awards due to her unconventional luminous glass processes, including being named a QEST Scholar in the UK and one of the global emerging young talents at New Horizons 2018 in China. She was first entranced by the beauty of glass on the streets of Murano, Italy. Ever since, she has been on a mission to draw people to the emotional power of glass. “I always seek to be in harmony with the material because it is then when I can manipulate it into a beautiful creation.”

Interview

What inspires the colours you use?: Nature is the greatest artist. The colours that I’m most interested in are often iridescent and hard to achieve but easily found in nature: abalone shell, jellyfish and labradonite crystal, for example. I love to create pieces which enable colour and light to create an illusion of movement.
How do you define what you are trying to do?: I’m always seeking to capture a softness within the glass by freezing organic movement and lines, by choreographing them into a subliminal form. In this way, each piece removes itself from being definite and possesses a life of its own, embodied in a sense of warmth and a wealth of emotions.
What do people not realise about your work?: My work is designed to be tactile, and the colours I use are not added pigments. In my Subtle Flow series the colours are the result of chemical reactions. In Otherworldly Bodies, the colours change as you touch the surface because they appear according to the amount of light in the work.
What do you love most about your craft?: I love being in a state of creativity. Glass is the main medium through which I communicate with the world and express myself. I’m constantly searching for ways to alter the perception of glass as being sturdy and cold, to capture and convey the material in its most fundamental fluidity.

Kaja Upelj is an expert artisan she began her career in 2012