STUDIO FOCUS | BERTIL VALLIEN

I like to tell stories, and I like to have many things in my toolbox…

Every artist has a studio, but few have one that is as much of a home for them as that of artist Bertil Vallien. Vallien has been working in the Åfors Glass Factory for forty years now, originally coming to the factory in 1963 when it was on the brink of closure due to low demand for its product. He helped bring the factory back from the edge of extinction and grow into one of the most successful in its craft in Sweden. As he evolved his artistic practice inside its walls the factory thrived along with him, earning himself an indelible place in the hearts of its workers in the process and eventually Kosta Boda, (one of the two oldest companies in the world) became the parent company of Åfors to become Orrefors KostaBoda.  

The landscape in Sweden on the way to visit Bertil Vallien.

It is said that early risers who visit the factory can usually spot Vallien in the morning as he likes to get off to an early start, beginning working around 7am. Vallien describes himself as a builder. Working in his space to build up surfaces on several pieces over long periods of time, working with his mold by hand and with various tools to create forms that give the glass a hand sculpted organic feel. During the preparation process as the studio fills with molds and inner forms, the energy is charged as anticipation mounts for the moment it will all come together; the pouring day. Bertil himself has said “When the time comes for the casting, this is the highlight of my life”.

Pouring his glass with a trusted team to see his weeks of preparation come together in a few minutes of thrilling satisfaction. The team of six of seven works seamlessly in a quickly coordinated effort to bring the works to life. His space is as unique as his work, specially crafted to facilitate the unique glass pouring techniques he has pioneered over the course of his career.

Bertil Vallien's statement that "glass eats light" is often quoted. Throughout his career as an artist, he has wrestled with the fact that the glass itself is beautiful, too beautiful, and he has sought resistance. Yet everything he does is beautiful.
"There is a beauty also in the dystopian. What I mean is that there are risks with this amazing material that easily sparkles and seduces. I don't want to be a part of that. I don't want to sing schlager… instead... for abstract singing!

- I can't help but... I like to tell stories, and I like to have many things in my toolbox.
Bertil often works with long time perspectives, such as the landscapes in the form of sand-cast cubes, where the rough casing is partly ground away so you can see what is hidden under the surface.
"I have taken up traces from the 80's about what is in the hidden depths under the thin shell we live on. These are dystopian images of bygone civilizations, war and environmental degradation, accelerating threats and implied events.
Pretty strong pictures”, he says.
The landscapes are also stations, stops if you like, in the journey towards new expressions. In them Bertil Vallien captures life and creates frozen worlds enclosed in the mass.
"All the cubes are some kind of impact, descriptions of a situation, both of unknown spaces and what is beneath the fragile crust. And it fits so well to work with glass, to enclose the bottomless sea.”
He mentions Jules Verne's journey to the centre of the earth as an inspiration, and the myth of the sunken Atlantis.

Cloud, (Landscape Series), 5.5 x 5.75 x 5/75”

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Video by Peer Eriksson

…in the gallery

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Core II 2016

Cast glass, 5.25 x 5.75 x 5.75"

Impact, 2016

Cast glass, 6.75 x 8.25 x 6”

Intruder IV, 2017

Cast glass, 8 x 6 x 6"

Landscape, 2019

Cast glass, 8 x 5.7 x 5.7"

Pubic Service, 2015

Cast glass, 3.5 x 5.25 x 5.25”

See Man, 2002

Sand cast glass, 13.38 x 16.92 x 3.15"

See more works on the Vallien’s gallery page of our website… click image below.

Boat, 2019, 9.5 x 44 x 4.5”

We are pleased to present a selection of Bertil’s prints at the gallery. Did you know he used to ride horses in 1957 during in his military service at K4 in Umeå?

Yellow @ Crossing, print by Bertil Vallien.

Journey with Bertil Vallien

Bertil Vallien loves stories, from local folklore and international news to history and religion. He consumes stories, churns them around in his imagination, layers in personal influences and interpretations, then releases this amalgam of inspiration in glass form. Vallien is a builder, thoughtfully constructing both the physical materials and the narrative content of each piece of art. Different themes, symbols, and characters populate his work, but one common thread is Vallien’s interest in the innate dualities of life—hot and cold, light and dark, internal and external, life and death, to name a few. This dichotomy is tangibly expressed in the process of hot molten glass being manipulated then suspended in final frozen stillness and further highlighted by Vallien’s technique of casting glass in molds and placing objects within the glass.

Vallien is known as a pioneer in the use of the sand-casting technique in glass, which he originally learned in an industrial capacity before developing it for use in fine art. The Swedish artist’s early training in clay brought him to Los Angeles to work in a small ceramics company; his budding interest in glass at the time collided fortuitously with a revolution in American Studio Glass in which glass makers were encouraged to create art inspired by their own intrinsic ideas and passions. Returning to Sweden, Vallien spent many years working for Kosta Boda as a designer but, pulled by the promise of artistic freedom, he gradually began dividing his time between commercial work and creative pursuits. He has not only contributed indelibly to the expansion of glass as a medium, but he has told the world stories that might have otherwise remained unwritten.

Several works center on the theme of the boat, an apt metaphor for the journey through and beyond life. Vallien says “I like fantasies and stories and the boat, of course, is a wonderful archetype that everybody can relate to. The hull is the only thing that protects what is inside from the lethal waters.” Yet, Vallien’s boats really have no hull at all. Inside and outside merge into one as the marine blue and earthy brown shape seems made from water itself, stilled into canoe-like form. The petrified objects encased within serve as clues about whomever sought safe passage within her. Human figures, crosses, and circle symbols lend a spiritual undercurrent to these works, which Vallien has called “dreams of an eternal life.”

Boat, 2019, Cast glass, 3.5 x 43.75 x 4.5"

Over the years, Vallien has worked a series he calls Area II. Area II is an imaginary zone (to get a sense of it, see the landscape made from glass in the work entitled Map) discovered in the future and struck by either freezing cold or destructive fire (there is that duality again). The idea for The Watcher began as small figurative inclusions in works in the Area II series, then emerged as if from an archaeological dig to become powerful hybrid land-figures which caused these catastrophic events. Heads rise pharaoh-like from earthly bondage, cryptic clues suspended within the blue glass body. Rough edges meet smoothly polished surfaces, protruding bubbles sit upon etched lines, different surface treatments eliciting complex emotional responses.

A detail of Map, 2018 Sand cast glass 20 x 17 x 2.75"

Detailed planning, textural nuance, elaborate narrative, and the intelligent play of contrasts define Vallien’s work, as exemplified in the Landscape works. Layers—both physical and psychological—are created through a multi step process. Surface textures result from the imprint of objects placed on the walls of the mold, which are also dusted with powdered metal oxides to release color. As the molten glass is poured into the mold, Vallien incorporates a variety of objects from sheet metal and glass threads, to figures and other colored forms.

Landscape, 2019, Sand cast glass, 8 x 5.7 x 5.7"

This master of duality offers a contra point to his intricate cast pieces with new works called Super Eggs. Vallien says that he sat down with his casting crew one day and said: “no casting today, let’s blow, let’s show what the human breath can do with glass.” The result is the most natural form glass can make, a bubble, expanded to the limits of fragility and lightness.

Confucius said “yin and yang, male and female, strong and weak, rigid and tender, heaven and earth, light and darkness, thunder and lightning, cold and warmth, good and evil…the interplay of opposite principles constitutes the universe.” That the same artist could conceive and execute such seemingly disparate works—from the thoughtful and weighty Landscapes to the spontaneous and diaphanous Super Eggs — may seem counter intuitive. In fact, this is the mark of an artist who truly relishes in the range of his material and who continues to explore the universal dualities of life and glass.

Super Egg, 2019, Blown glass, 20 x 14.25 x 14.25"

VALLIEN'S HORSES

Vallien has stated that his “whole career started with horses.” The magnificent and gentle animal fascinates Vallien, who deftly captures their monumental form in a series of drawings. Until now, he has not exhibited his two-dimensional work in the United States. Portraying the horses in either black and white or golden amber flecked with red imbues them with an otherworldly air. Motifs from Vallien’s glass works appear as supporting characters—enigmatic cave-like drawings, celestial maps, landscape sketches, and mask-filled boats are layered directly on the horse form or set in the background. Vallien demonstrates a thoughtful touch when working in two-dimensions, blending chiaroscuro bands of soft color with precise line drawings. His deliberate layering of objects, tones, and textures creates a sense of depth on the page.

Grid 80, 2017

At the Edge, 2019

Untitled, 2018

Yellow 2 - Crossing, 2019

Starry Sky, 2019

Untitled, 2018

Shown here are a selection of limited edition archival prints on 310 gr ARCHES paper. 21 x 27”