Glass designer Silje Lindrup finds inspiration in the material's unpredictability

In a seaside barn in northern Denmark, Silje Lindrup shapes molten glass into vessels, clocks and sculptural forms that seem to hover between control and chaos. Working by the sea allows her to slow down and stay close to the material that has defined her life and career.

‘I moved back to North-Denmark three years ago after six years in Sweden and finishing my bachelor at Konstfack in Stockholm,’ she says. ‘The big city is not the place for me to live. I like to be surrounded by nature and be able to breathe. Besides that, it is so much easier to be an artist without the big rents in the city. I run a more or less open studio in an old barn with sea view which attracts a lot of people who love the place’s uniqueness.’

Silje Lindrup's contemporary approach to gla

Lindrup grew up not far away, in the small coastal village of Lønstrup. ‘I grew up in a small village in the northern part of Denmark, Lønstrup, which was and still is a spot for a lot of different crafts,’ she says. ‘When I was a teen I started working for a goldsmith, then a potter and in the end a glassblower. She was my neighbour.’ That early experience shaped a lifelong connection to handmade processes and to the unpredictable behaviour of hot glass.

‘A lot of my ideas emerge when working with the material,’ she says. ‘I cannot predict everything and make sketches – I have to be in the material to be able to know what I’m capable of.’ This instinctive, physical relationship defines her practice, which often sits between art and utility. ‘In the middle more or less,’ she says when asked how she positions herself on that spectrum. ‘I enjoy making objects you somehow know the traditional function of, but then twisting it and making you question its function again.’

Her ‘Melt’ series embodies this dialogue between form and freedom. ‘The Melt series are an outcome of my bachelor project,’ she explains. ‘I wanted to examine the possibilities of heating up glass to extreme temperatures.’ The resulting pieces appear frozen mid-motion, a record of glass in flux. ‘I have been trained in being the one in control when working with glass,’ she says. ‘This series is the opposite – here the hot glass decides when to stop moving and lets the moment be the one in charge.’

For Lindrup, the material remains endlessly compelling. ‘It’s like you don’t find the same energy in other materials,’ she says. ‘And you have to be so focused, otherwise it is just lost.’