CGD

Hana Hillerová is an established visual artist who has recently become a sought-after designer. She has also recently started using glass as her medium of choice, and its unique characteristics and potential has provided her with a new challenge.

Her last collection of vases called Remix was first presented at last year’s Designblok festival – the collection connects the contemporary world with the past in a unique way: it melds monumentality with ornamental décor and historicity, and connects the vases’ massive thickness with the fragility and transparency of the glass material. Using a combination of historical forms from the Jílek Glassworks in Kamenický Šenov, Hana created impressive 3D collages that owe much to the brutalist style of the 1950s, while their overall expression surprises us with its intentional “imperfections”. This effect is created by the molten matter congealing and expanding, trying desperately to find new paths beyond the shape of its mold. Hana intentionally gives glass its freedom of self-expression and only curbs it by the imposition of her own artistic intention. This makes for breathtaking, polished works. The vases take the form of glass assemblages in clear and saturated colored tones of forest green, pink, ultramarine blue and opaline white.

Metal used to be her primary medium of choice, and now it has served her well in reusing the historical, century-old glass molds that allowed her to create unique glass objects.

Although they serve as vases, their grand scale implies that Hana Hillerová might be returning to creating spatial projects. It seems that she dislikes being bound, whether by her monumental success or by being pigeonholed in a single artistic or design category. We can certainly expect many surprises from her in the future. Her work testifies to her authentic creative vision and her courage to transform and experiment regardless of age, confirming that even after fifty, you can still win the Discovery of the Year award.

Tereza Bruthansová