Dutch architect Anne Holtrop is renowned for his work across art, architecture and design through a multifaceted practice that blends spatial construction with material gesture. Holtrop’s inaugural exhibition with Carpenters features three new functional artworks in cast glass that explore the dynamic relationship between light, space and material, while celebrating the ability of glass to record environmental and spatial conditions.
Working between the Netherlands and Bahrain, Holtrop explores the expressive potential of raw materials that emerges though transformative processes. This new series of tables is made through casting molten glass – the oldest form of glass making. The technique sees molten sand poured into graphite moulds before cooling and solidifying into transparent panes. This complex process requires tremendous precision in temperature, timing and material, resulting in a body of work that honours glass as a fusion of climate and geology. Translucent, crystalline formations within the slabs are created by casting the glass against moulds with sand relief imprints – a low-relief inspired by ancient stone reliefs that Holtrop observed in Aswan, Egypt.