Venetian avant-garde resin glass artist collaborates with traditional Murano glass artisans

September 18, 2020

Inventive and mysterious, our beloved sculpture artist Annalu is adding touches of the old-world to her new-age sculptures.

Annalu is known world-wide for her invention of a new medium, which she calls resin glass. Since East West Fine Art first introduced Annalu to the States and to Naples in 2015, she has gained a significant American collector base.

Murano glass artisans achieved stardom as early as the 13th century for the finest quality glass objects of art in Europe. Today the tradition continues, and Murano island is home to numerous glass factories and artist studios.

In her newest collection of Dream Catchers Annalu pays homage to the ancient tradition of glass making in her country.

She is combining her innovative resin glass with one-of-a-kind Murano glass disks. Annalu sought out a very special glass foundry on the island. Only these artisans are able to create such disks with their own centuries-old technique.

Annalu explains the intricate process of creating these Dream Catcher masterpieces.

Highly-skilled artisans, using an ancient secret technique heats the colored murine (multi-color glass beads) inside a piece of glass. The murine and glass are heated until the murrine becomes incandescent, or it begins to emit radiation and glow. The explosion occurs when the hot glass comes in contact with the metal at the base of the platform on which the glass stands. The artisan meanwhile spins the platform, which creates the swirling and melting circular pattern while flattening the glass into a disk.

The artisans create other disks without the exploding murine. The Ginkgo Dream sculpture has a murrano glass disk reminiscent of a shell, coated in iridescent nacre.

The master glass artist and Annalu also incorporate nacre (mother of pearl), adding additional shine and iridescence to the disk.

The colors on the disc dictate the tone for the rest of the Dream Catcher. Annalu then creates a whole new color design within the individual Ginkgo or butterfly sheets.

In her color design, Annalu worked in reverse: from the fused colors of the murrine, she created the fluid-looking murrine in the outermost leaves of the Dream Catcher. Examples of the three designs of the Ginkgo leaves are in the artist diagram below.