14
Dec
Daniela Forti creates glass “Jellyfish” tables
If you think glassware production does not include anything more than the ordinary household items we use in our daily life, think again after reading this text
Italian artist Daniela Forti employs a unique glass-fusion technique to delicately craft luminous works of art. Referred to as “sculpture installations,” each piece showcases the artist’s innovative methods and interest in light. While this inventive approach to the age-old process of glass-working is evident in her entire oeuvre, it is most beautifully apparent in her ongoing series of luminous glass jellyfish sculptures.
Italian master Daniela Forti uses a unique glass-fusion technique to create incredibly surreal and unique translucent artworks, which are very likely to remind you of a familiar sea creature that many of us do not find particularly pleasant, especially to touch - a jellyfish .
Although Forti comes from Rome, she claims she has learned everything about the mastery of creating glass art from the sophisticated and centuries-old Tuscan tradition. The 57-year-old lady has lived and worked in the hills of Chianti since 1982 and maintains her prestigious reputation as a master of glass art with her latest collection, appropriately called Meduse - the Italian word for jellyfish. She produces these breathtaking sculptures by merging glass - a technique that involves melting already solid pieces of glass at the most appropriate moment as they merge into one, forming new and beautiful shapes. In the case of "Meduse", gravity is a tool that helps Forti spread the realistic "tentacles" which these beautiful but dangerous animals have.
Gentle, sophisticated, beautiful and surreal artworks could be turned into an everyday object like a table, but you will definitely need to be very careful about what you put on this fragile construction. If you are lucky enough to visit Tuscany, you can visit Daniela Forti's permanent exhibition of glass jewelry and artwork at the Palazzo Tucci Hotel in Lucca.
While it is indeed possible to use these tables as furniture, they are to a great extent to be regarded as a work of art whose function is rather aesthetic and pleasant to the eye and soul rather than be regarded as a mere furniture, to perform its function. The goal of Daniela Forti's project is to demonstrate the potential of her skills, but also the overall potential of the craft, which she herself knows to perfection.
