Concerto di Primavera 2000

These curvaceous glass sculptures are by Lino Tagliapietra, and what strikes me immediately is how the eye just dances across their surfaces. It's all about this process of continual discovery. Look at how the lines of colour seem to flow and shift, like water rippling over smooth stones. Tagliapietra really understands the material possibilities of glass, pushing it, coaxing it, to achieve these incredible effects. The glass is so thin in places, almost transparent, then thicker, denser, allowing the colour to really saturate. It feels like he's not just shaping glass, but also light itself. It's incredible to think how controlled he must be with the molten glass to achieve such free form results. There's something of Dale Chihuly in the playfulness and scale of this piece, but Tagliapietra brings a particular sophistication, a quiet grace to his work. His elegant sculptures are always surprising, always inviting new ways of seeing.