ULLA FORSELL
SPILL
MARS 20 – APRIL 10, 2021
It is with pride and joy that Galleri Sebastian Schildt presents Swedish glass artist and legend Ulla Forsell in the solo exhibition Spill. Forsell exhibits about twenty new works in art glass – large, wall-mounted compositions on the theme of recycling as well as urgent sculptures from her Corona Collection I and II.
The shimmering and irresistible Spill series consists of pieces of coloured flat glass. They are beautiful pieces leftover from the production of flat glass, which Forsell has tucked away over the years. Finally, these overlooked pieces of glass have been given a new purpose! Spill is about the ability to gather and transform remnants into something beautiful and indispensable. The back of the differently coloured glass is gilded with metal or plated with a thin layer of mirror. The glass pieces are then composed in patterns reminiscent of the rhythm of a parquet floor, or bricks inserted into a wall.
Flat glass dates back to an older technique used in the production of mirrors and windows. Glass in the form of a cylinder is first blown, then the bottom is removed and a strip of the glass is cut away so that once heated, the glass cylinder can collapse into a sheet of flat glass. The blown glass has a three-dimensional and lively surface, while the top edge of the cylinder is always a little coarser and has a higher concentration of colour. Combined they create a gorgeous rhythm in Forsell’s different works.
When viewing a 16th century Hieronymus Bosch painting, Temptation of Saint Anthony, Forsell suddenly saw her glass funnels in a new light. She was inspired to create a series of five individual sculptures, together forming what appears like a scene from a magical apothecary or laboratory setting. A medicine or vaccine is being produced here, but the alluring colours of the sculptures also evoke images of toys. Ulla Forsell’s series is titled Virus Shot/ The Corona Collection and is an expression of her wish for a solution to this pandemic.
The continuation, Corona Collection II, consists of brand new glass works in the form of emergency vehicles and a convoy bringing disaster relief and the much-awaited vaccine. The expression in Forsell’s works is soft and bulky with rough surfaces that are deliberately far from perfect. The glass series is a tribute to science which succeeded in producing vaccines in record time.
