Celestial bodies: Flavie Audi traps iridescent colours in geological glass forms
![Flavie](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/cWe56FpHZpJMAyuPHu8wK4-415-80.jpg)
French-Lebanese artist Flavie Audi's interest in glass developed when she was studying architecture in London. She became frustrated by the unimaginative way glass was often used – as a flat, stolid material. 'I was keen to manipulate glass in a sensual way, to give it humanity,' she explains. 'When working in architecture, you always have a client and a brief, so I thought the best way to explore this was to move away from architecture and into art.'
Since switching disciplines, Audi has been dubbed a 'glass artist'; which, despite her love of the material, is limiting. She also produces digital and analogue photography, film and multimedia art, as a new exhibition at Tristan Hoare gallery in London displays. Split into two rooms, 'Cell-(estial)' pinpoints the moment virtual and physical worlds meet, through the interaction between Audi's weighty blown-glass sculptures and her ethereal, airy video installations.
Despite the difference in mediums, the exhibition is united by Audi's dazzling, otherwordly aesthetic. There's an alien quality to each work. It's difficult to know how each piece was made, or what it's even made from. 'Everyone always wants to touch my works,' she says. 'I encourage this.'
'Fluid Rock 19'. © Flavie Audi. Courtesy of Tristan Hoare
You half expect the glass works to be soft and rubbery rather than smooth and glazed. The bubble-like textures are created through a variety of innovative glass-blowing techniques that Audi is keeping close to her chest. Though she does tell us, 'I like to misuse or invent new steps in the glass blowing process. It's like making my own recipes.'
All we know is that these mysterious recipes mix together synthetic elements with organic ones, reflecting glass' changing use from a purely physical, architectural object to an interactive one. Today, glass is something that we hold in our hands and interact with on a daily basis through our phones and devices. It is no longer a one-dimensional material; rather, it is an experiential, virtual one, beautifully captured here by Audi's curiously modern forms.
Left, Fluid Rock, 2016; and Gemscape 1, 2016. Photography: Ben Westoby. Right, Fluid Rock 16.
Cloudscape 8, 2016.
INFORMATION
’Cell-(estial)’ is on view until 9 January 2017. For more information, visit the Tristan Hoare
ADDRESS
Tristan Hoare
Six Fitzroy Square
London W1T 5HJ
Wallpaper* Newsletter + Free Download
For a free digital copy of August Wallpaper*, celebrating Creative America, sign up today to receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories
Elly Parsons is the Digital Editor of Wallpaper*, where she oversees Wallpaper.com and its social platforms. She has been with the brand since 2015 in various roles, spending time as digital writer – specialising in art, technology and contemporary culture – and as deputy digital editor. She was shortlisted for a PPA Award in 2017, has written extensively for many publications, and has contributed to three books. She is a guest lecturer in digital journalism at Goldsmiths University, London, where she also holds a masters degree in creative writing. Now, her main areas of expertise include content strategy, audience engagement, and social media.
-
Commune’s sustainable personal care products look ‘quite unlike anything else’
Commune’s Somerset-made products stand out in the sustainable skincare crowd. Madeleine Rothery speaks with the brand’s co-founders Kate Neal and Rémi Paringaux
By Madeleine Rothery Published
-
‘Hedonistic and avant-garde’: Rabanne’s Julian Dossena on the legacy of the chainmail 1969 bag
Paco Rabanne’s 1969 chainmail handbag encapsulates the late designer’s futuristic, space-age style. Current creative director Julien Dossena tells Wallpaper* about the bag’s particular pleasures
By Jack Moss Published
-
Postcard from Paris: Olympic fever takes over the streets
On the eve of the opening ceremony of Paris 2024, our correspondent shares her views from the streets of the capital about how the event is impacting the urban landscape.
By Minako Norimatsu Published
-
‘Mental health, motherhood and class’: Hannah Perry’s dynamic installation at Baltic
Hannah Perry's exhibition ’Manual Labour’ is on show at Baltic in Gateshead, UK, a five-part installation drawing parallels between motherhood and factory work
By Emily Steer Published
-
Francis Alÿs plots child play around the world at the Barbican
In Francis Alÿs' exhibition ‘Ricochets’ at London’s Barbican, the artist explores the universality of play, even in challenging situations
By Amah-Rose Abrams Published
-
At Glastonbury’s Shangri-La, activism and innovation meet
Glastonbury’s south-east corner is known for its after-dark entertainment but by day, there is a different story to tell
By Rhian Daly Published
-
‘I am almost an anti-sculptor’: Dominique White on her Whitechapel Max Mara Art Prize show
The artist mines the ocean to explore Afrofuturism in ‘Deadweight’, opening at London’s Whitechapel and detailed in a new film
By Amah-Rose Abrams Published
-
Remembering Rusty Egan's Blitz Club: a place to 'avoid the mob and the homophobes', where the New Romantics were born
As he releases new vinyl boxset, 'Blitzed!', Wallpaper* meets DJ Rusty Egan to talk about London's scene-building Blitz club – the antidote to the late 70s punk scene and a hot-bed of experimental fashion
By Craig McLean Published
-
Suzannah Pettigrew's 'tender and ghostly' new show at Surrealist photographer Lee Miller's former home in East Sussex
London-based artist Suzannah Pettigrew's photographic stills create a snapshot of her Sussex coast childhood, conjuring up a hallucinatory world of memory
By Mary Cleary Published
-
The body, pleasure and play: Beryl Cook and Tom of Finland united in London
Tom of Finland’s homoeroticism meets Beryl Cook’s female-oriented camp as Studio Voltaire unites work by the two artists in a London exhibition
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Zanele Muholi celebrates South Africa’s Black LGBTI communities in LA and London
Zanele Muholi's portraits and sculptures are currently on show at Southern Guild Los Angeles and the Tate Modern, London
By Hannah Silver Published