Wilfried Grootens

With my stained-glass painting, I fill transparent geometric spaces whose visual explorations produce surprising variations of form. Different viewing angles of seemingly spherical, floating forms built up from linear brushstrokes open up new perspectives for the viewer within the object space.
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I prefer standard float glass for my work. In early pieces, I cut it into lamellae in slightly varying shapes, which I layered in a stainless-steel mount or stacked between stone, wood, and charcoal. This created light-bundling fields or blocks of clear or coloured glass as an interruption within a dull, glass-contrary material.

Later, I made slender display cases in which I stacked small square, colour-painted glass panes. From this, the body of work “Where the shark bubbles blow” developed.

Today, I work primarily on this very body of work. With fine brushstrokes, I paint or draw on individual panes which, layered and glued together, form seemingly glass-floating, three-dimensional bodies.