Yorgos Papadopoulos is an artist who works with glass as his medium. This work is unique and does not fit neatly into any category. It is fine art, architectural, decorative and sculptural, all at the same time. Working with both abstract and figurative subjects, Yorgos breaks colours and textures sheets of industrial glass and then re-laminates them. The finished piece looks as if it would be very fragile, but in fact it is extremely durable.
The inspiration for the technique Yorgos uses came whilst a student at the Royal College of Art in London. His “failed” kiln forming in a ceramics and glass class gave him an appreciation for breakages and crackling of the surface during the process. Today, hammers, bricks bullets and electric current are just some of his artist tools. ‘Glass is my canvas, hammers are my brushes,’ he says. And, in fact, his breathtakingly beautiful artworks are actually smashed sheets of glass that are treated with sandblasting, glass pigments, gold leaf, enamels, silicone gels and even – by accident – droplets of his own blood. Through much experimentation, his work gains its beauty from the broken and reflect the paradoxes of glass.
Whatever the theme, abstract or figurative, the image shown invariably leaves you looking into its depths in wonder and delight, perhaps recalling natural phenomena such as broken ice or moving water, and the artist’s radical experimentation with transparency and light is always part of a very intense, very visual experience.
