Lise Gonthier

Glass sculptor

Turning glass into tableaux

Lise creates 'paintings' using glass
She combines different hot and cold glass techniques
She trained with some of Europe's top glassmakers

Lise Gonthier discovered the art of glassblowing while studying painting at the Institut Supérieur des Beaux Arts de Besançon in France. She went on to take courses in France and the Czech Republic, learning the techniques of the craft with experts including Vincent Breed in Lyon, Baccarat in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, and Verrerie de Bréha. In 2006, she set up her own studio in the south of France dedicated to creating glass panels. She describes her own work as being somewhere between painting and sculpture, through the medium of glass. Her works are intended to be viewed as paintings and they challenge the way that we perceive the glass medium.

Interview

What is your work intended to express?: My goal is to create a visual expression with optical and graphic effects. I prefer abstraction to figures; the visual field seems freer to me. I want my audience to enter a defined space of the painting and to discover the space inside. I'm trying to provoke an emotion.
How do tradition and innovation combine in your work?: Blown glass is traditionally seen as a container, but I use it as a pictorial medium. I have essentially hijacked the glassblower’s basic element, which is the paperweight, and transformed it into an artwork.
What do you like most about glass?: Beyond mastery, glass requires a lot of rigour, listening and patience. What I like the most is this technical, physical and sensory confrontation that it brings to me. I think it's a very complete physical material.
What advice would you offer to young artisans?: To be curious, to enrich oneself, to see as much as possible. Not to be limited to one subject, to be open, motivated, willing and courageous!

Lise Gonthier is an expert artisan: she began her career in 2003