Anna Skibska’s world-renowned glass installations encompass the essence, and problematic nature, of light. Both particle and wave, tiny fragment and whole, her flameworked glass structures hang suspended somewhere between the physical and metaphysical. They are objects but also metaphors, characters in Skibska’s storytelling tradition, rooted in her Polish immigrant history. Delicate filaments of glass outline sculptural forms, capturing and trapping light to give the impression of a nonexistent solidity. The veinous lines creating the forms are fragile, reminiscent of spider webs or the underside of a leaf. Like the web or leaf, however, these fragile lines create a skeleton of surprising strength. Their sheer size (often 10 feet high or more) and architectural form give them a graceful balance between precious and grand - a dual nature defined.
“Light and darkness – described by each other – play a role in my conception and in your perception of the sculpture,” says Skibska. “Beyond what you see is a symbolic reference to life and death, to the ambiguities of moments in time and time as eternity – between internal and external realities – in the drama of open and hollow forms…always described by light and shadow.”
Skibska uses a tiny blowtorch and tweezers to create her works, stretching glass rods in a unique method. “A torch for me is like a pencil,” she says. To facilitate her process, Bullseye Glass Co. created special high-tensile glass rods suitable for the architectural scale of her work.
Skibska has had solo exhibitions in Poland, Italy, and across the US. Her work is in public installations throughout Seattle, WA and in Charlotte, NC and Chicago, IL.
Download: Anna Skibska April 5, 2006