Aoife
Burke
Glass

My work is formed by fusing clear and coloured glass, creating and building elements that I combine to become the finished pieces you see here. It can be a slow and delicate process, but one that allows me to explore the wonderfully expressive nature of this beautiful material. Few things beat the anticipation of opening the kiln to discover what has formed within.

The very science of glass is fascinating – instead of colours, think metals and minerals (selenium, sulpher, copper, lead, silver, gold…), which is how colours in glass are made. Some elements react with others and this can be used when designing in glass. That is why my logo contains a nod to the atom symbol.

I grew up on the banks of the river Boyne, beside the Hill of Tara – the seat of High Kings in Ireland. It was a childhood enriched by the beauty of my surroundings. There can be no surprise then, that I find visual inspiration in nature, in a splash of dappled light, a richly coloured leaf, a perfectly formed shell… Sometimes, my role is simply to capture that sense of beauty and ‘pause’ it in time. My work often takes me deeper though, as I use it to explore some of life’s interesting questions.