National Glass Centre

Anne Vibeke Mou has been artist-in-residence at National Glass Centre since April 2007. During her residency she has continued to explore her concerns with rendering the material ‘immaterial’. The Glass Wall is a new commission for the National Glass Centre, which consists of sandblasted glass, one sheet of which has been slumped creating the illusion of space beyond its surface. The proportions of this anomaly appear to relate to the size of a human figure and allude to doorways to other spaces or worlds.

The untitled drawings have been painstakingly built up by layer upon layer of graphite on translucent paper. These drawings, like the opacity of the sandblasted glass, resemble a smoke screen or cloud that promises to reveal what might lie behind.

Relic incorporates window glass rescued from a Tyneside building dated c1870. In this work the artist is interested in the idea that the glass itself is not static; imperfections, dust specks or other minutiae caught inside the glass are like a snap-shot in time, as if events viewed through the glass have left their residue embedded in it, allowing us to see the past.
The ancient glass fragments excavated from St. Peter’s Church, Monkwearmouth also capture something of their history and creation over one thousand years ago.

Original glass from St. Peter’s Church, Monkwearmouth, courtesy of Tyne & Wear Museums, Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens.