Michèle Oberdieck specialises in blown glass inspired by natural forms and organic processes, exploring balance and asymmetry through shape, surface and colour. Using sculptural forms as a gesture, or expressive mark, often grouping a few pieces together, a narrative is created.
Focusing on the experience of light, Michèle combines gradations of transparency and tone with a more opaque element, capturing a sense of movement and fluidity, such as the luminosity of colours found in the sky as day turns to dusk.
In an attempt to recreate the organic shapes found in nature, she actively works against symmetry, one of the core processes of blown glass.
Michèle Oberdieck
collectible objects
About
“Capturing colour and form to create movement, and character.”
Michèle Oberdieck
Process
Drawing and colour work is very important to Oberdieck when starting a new idea. From her drawings she often makes a coiled clay model to see how the form will work in 3D , before going to the glass hotshop to try the shapes out.
She creates mark making and patterns, using the classic Swedish technique of Graal where overlayed cups of glass colours are cut through using engraving wheels. Traditionally used as a technique to express narrative, she employs this method to examine the relationship between the positive and negative ground.
The balance of transparency and opacity, and the effect of light being diffused through pattern, affects depth, and creates an almost optical illusion. The opening of the vessels draws in light to illuminate it from within.
Services
- commissions
- designing for industry
Gallery
Maker stories
Article
The UN International Year of Glass
Online presentation with glass artists Katharine Coleman MBE, Lulu Harrison and Michèle Oberdieck.
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Interview
Film: Heart of Glass talk
In the first of our new series of online talks, we delve in to all things glass with Katharine Coleman MBE, Michèle Oberdieck and Lulu Harrison.
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Article
Cockpit makers at Collect 2023
As Collect art fair returns to Somerset House from 3–5 March, we look at the world-class makers representing Cockpit
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