When making glass objects, I strive for an intriguing combination of form, colour, and surface texture. My favorite technique is pâte-de-verre. A paste of fine glass powder is glued along the inside of a refractory mold. After firing, the mold is removed, revealing a structure of molten glass. This is how I create organic and container-like forms.

"Emptiness has a skin," Dutch glass artist Ria Lap (b. 1949) seems to want to say with her sensitive and attractive work. Using glass paste, pâte-de-verre, she creates hollow forms reminiscent of bowls or particular sea creatures but which primarily seem to envelop an animated void. It is as if the fragile exterior of her artworks grew from an invisible inner core, with the uncomplicated but rich simplicity of a natural process. Her work is created thanks to a large dose of caring craftsmanship, making it a model of glass art in the purest sense of the word: craft in perfect harmony with artistic meaning.

(source:  Etienne Gallery)