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Arts & Communication Contemporary Portuguese glass art

from 2006, reflects the house and its relationship with the
family that inhabits it. “The dream of the work is built in
front of it, a reflection of the Man who, with a deceived
smile, already knows that he will fall from it. To get back
on your feet later? Maybe…” In 2008, he won a prize at
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the Marinha Grande Fine Art Biennale for his work The
Neighborhood, 110 × 110 × 80 cm, 2008, which also alludes
to family.
Bert Holvast and Barbara Walraven are foreigners living
and working in Portugal. They fell “in love” with glass
and collaborated with CRISFORM in the making of their
glass pieces that were showcased in a solo exhibition at
Marinha Grande in 2006. Barbara’s work Walking the Dog
was displayed in the glass museum, whereas Bert’s work
Everything is Broken was exhibited in a pavilion center.
Figure 5. Barbara Walraven, Geórgia, (approximate measurements of this
Previous works by Barbara Walraven, dating back to piece, base 80 × 80 × 90 cm), 2006. Photo credit: Jorge Soares, captured
2003, present the female condition and states of mind, at Archive Glass Museum, Marinha Granda town hall. Copyright ©
but the work she presented in the exhibition demonstrates 2006 Jorge Spares. Reprinted with permission of Archive Glass Museum,
Marinha Granda town hall.
her relationship with dogs, featuring elements of fusion
and casting works, as well as painting on glass. Her pieces
are installations made of glass combined with textiles, in
which the figures of dogs are modeled by draperies and
glass. In some of the examples shown at the museum,
glass is used to create the model animal’s head and legs. In
other works, we see the head placed on a metal frame. In
addition to this work, we also see paintings where the artist
is represented. Self-portrait is also a constant theme in her
works. Her dogs are now part of the permanent exhibition
in the glass museum. According to Catarina Carvalho,
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Barbara’s leitmotif is animals, water, the landscape, and
the environment. Geórgia is an installation that takes up
the entire space of the museum room. On the walls, we
can visualize self-portraits of the artist calling her dog.
Geórgia (made with glassblowing technique), which was Figure 6. Bert Holvast, Arena, variable dimensions, 2006. Photo credit:
Jorge Soares, captured at Archive Glass Museum, Marinha Grande
placed in the center of the room, remained motionless at town hall. Copyright © 2006 Jorge Spares. Reprinted with permission of
her owner’s call, portraying a state of tension. The white Archive Glass Museum, Marinha Granda town hall.
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fabric suggests a slight movement as the crowds pass by
walking around the sculpture (Figure 5). on small pieces of glass on the floor. His other works also
In Bert Holvast’s installation Arena (Figure 6), the include A Horse with No Name and Bull, 170 × 85 cm,
artist seeks to draw attention to the controversial theme of which are painting and glass fusing pieces, respectively.
bullfighting and the ways bulls are tortured by this activity Joana Vasconcelos is a famous Portuguese artist who
in Portugal. It is a work with a dense atmosphere and full participated in the Venice Biennale in 2005 and was the
of symbolism that seeks to elicit the anguish of suffering. first and youngest female artist to exhibit at the Palace of
The viewer is led to walk through a space made up of 23 Versailles in 2012. She conceived an installation of glass
paintings arranged in the form of an arena where the floor bottles, forming two giant chandeliers, entitled The Nectar
is covered with glass. The enormous expressiveness of his (720 × Ø350 cm) (Figure 7). With these two pieces, she
works, driven by the impression of movement through won the Berardo Museum competition in 2006, and these
delineated color, aroused tensions. The red is the blood artworks are now placed at the north and south entrances
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of the animal, poured into the arena by human action. This of Centro Cultural de Belém, Lisbon. This work “consists of
installation is made up of various spaces recreated in the a structure similar to Porte-bouteilles, although on a large
huge pavilion; the visitor walks in these spaces, stepping scale.” 27,p.18 Furthermore, according to Miguel Amado, this

Volume 2 Issue 3 (2024) 6 doi: 10.36922/ac.2777