Bernard Heesen & Nienke Sikkema

Common things such as goblets, tumblers and bowls play a large role in his work. He often finds his inspiration in black and white engravings in 19th century encylopedias.

Bernard Heesen, an architect by training and self-taught glassblower plays an ironic game with the modern categories of art and kitsch, craft and industry, original and copy, unique and series.

Nienke Sikkema graduated at the Royal Academy of Arts the Hague after studying history and journalism at the University of Amsterdam. After graduating she started working at the Oude Horn, the glassblowing studio of Bernard Heesen. There she learned the craft of glassblowing and started executing her own designs in glass. She describes her way of working as ‘playing with glass’. She lets the glass drip, stacks it and rolls it into a candleholder or sculpts animals with it. As long as the glass allows it and the material doesn’t have to be forced. Shape, color, transparency and shimmer, all the qualities that glass possesses are used in her designs. Hopefully this way people will recognize the fun of the making process in the objects that emerge from it.