Colours of Transparency at London Design Fair to showcase the endless possibilities of glass

The Studio of Glass at UMPRUM, the Academy of Arts, Architecture & Design in Prague, will present Colours of Transparency at this year's London Design Fair, showcasing the latest body of imaginative works by its students.

Pellucidity and hue, as related to glass, form the central theme of the exhibition, which will explore with the boundaries between applied and fine arts, crafting glass and then artistically disrupting it, as students work with paint, disrupting classic design concepts and are not afraid to experiment.

The Colours of Transparency exhibition space will reflect the ubiquitous ambiguity of glass. Spray paint will obscure the view while simultaneously accentuating and highlighting the space, so challenging the distinction between vandalism and art.

The central display of the show will be the project Merano – POP by František Jungvirt, whose concept connects craftsmanship from the Renaissance and Baroque periods with looseness, expression and a technical development of the present time. His objects are at the same time a performance in which the lesser shine of the crystal is replenished with colour.

Another exhibitor is Barbora Štefánková and her collection '9539 Days'. Small figurative sculptures linked to the tradition of glass figures are brought into the context of contemporary art.

Meanwhile, Sebastian Kitzberger chose a remarkable way to create his collection of vases. Crust reinterprets the traditional artistic craft of dense blown-glass vases. The wood moulds used for the production of the vases were cut by a chainsaw to obtain a radical shape and texture imitating cut glass.

Marieta Tedenacová's Narcissus vases are a high-quality art object, which works with the reflection of the viewer's face on the mirrored inner surface of the vase and on the outer opposite side of the vase is a portrait using traditional painting techniques. The author works with the motif of self-portraiture and fragmentation that connects the viewer's reflection with the painting.

Elsewhere, the Vandal Vases collection by Dominika Petrtýlová is based on a combination of paintings by the Old Masters, city calligraphy, tagging, and graffiti. She works with the moment when the art of the architecture encounters a natural vandalism and a human vandalism, she processes all of this and injects it into her own designs.

The key topic of Jana Němcová's diploma thesis Chiméra is the interpretation of subjective perception of colours. Jana’s installation features a combination of glass-making technologies and materials; by layering glass slabs and objects, she thematises the colour spectrum and the possibilities of its perception. The key role is played by colour – a perception that is generally known and often described, but also subjective, sensual and difficult to grasp. Jana is inspired by natural phenomena; she creatively captures them in glass and other materials.

To find out more, visit www.londondesignfair.co.uk. For more information about UMPRUM or any of its exhibitors for the Colours of Transparency exhibition, visit umprum.cz.