Tora Urup

Tora Urup is a glass designer and artist working independently and in collaboration with glass manufacturers, individual craftsmen and glass factories mainly in the Czech Republic and Japan. Preoccupied with familiar objects such as bowls and glassware, Tora Urup is interested in how we might experience and perceive these common objects anew, both as functional objects and individual pieces that could be described as visual interpretations of the known object. Structure, colour and thickness of glass are exploited to produce a body of work that questions our conventional understanding of how glass reacts. For example: in a glass bowl a trompe l’oeil effect is created in which the interior volume seemingly floats independently of its exterior. Through a careful juxtaposition of coloured glass and the treatment of cut and polished surfaces an illusion of infinite and liquid space inside a physically restraint volume is created. This body of work is reflecting Tora Urup’s investigation into the specific role played by color and material and the influence of light in our perception of volume and space, and reveals her interest in altering archetypes like the glass bowl into dreamlike objects Tora Urup studied in Japan, Denmark and Great Britain and has exhibited her work worldwide. She is represented by Galerie Maria Wettergren, Paris