awareness post - ellen van dijk

When searching for an artist for this awareness post, I really wanted to find someone working in glass and ceramics, especially after my fantastic experience creating glass and recent work in sculpture, both of which I really enjoyed. I'd absolutely love to do stained glass in the future, and incorporating it into my Art 4 work is something that really interests me, if possible. So, for this post, I am focusing on Ellen Van Dijk. I found Van Djik through Instagram, just as I find many artists, but her work immediately stood out to me. At first glance, very few of her pieces look like stained glass - I could imagine countless other mediums, but creating something that detailed out of stained glass is insane.

Many of her pieces incorporate softer shapes, often in the form of figures, portraits, textures, and shading which would normally not be possible with glass. Essentially, she will create a stained glass piece and subsequently paint on it, incorporating small details which I would never have thought of as something that stained glass could be - I typically think of stained glass as very isolated shapes, so her usage of shadows and textures is particularly interesting. Her Instagram account (@glasatelierellen) is helpful to look at because it really details her process in an effective way, showing each step to her audience - I'd love to try out painting on stained glass at some point, especially because I have such an interest in general glass work in the future!