From a young age, Isabelle Scheltjens was fascinated by faces and how we read them. The duality between apparent perfection at a distance and the imperfect reality up close became the foundation of her glass fusing art.
Her journey into glass fusing began by chance: a portrait of her daughter, made from small pieces of glass in her husband Dirk Neefs’s workshop. The result surprised everyone, including herself. A style was born.
The result was amazing and intriguing – for myself and others. I had intuitively developed a style and method in which I could lay my creative and artistic ‘egg’. And my work hit a chord with the people who saw it.
We are now about ten years down the road, and my portraits are hanging among pieces by renowned artists in galleries around the world. I had never dared to hope for this level of success. But I am proud of what I have accomplished and the growth path I have been travelling since the very beginning. Isabelle Scheltjens
After ten years of creating glass fusing portraits, Isabelle Scheltjens ventured into a new artistic territory: sculptures in glass crush and marble. These works are technically masterful, emotionally profound and visually commanding.
The elongated faces in her sculptures distort familiar features to invite a deeper look. They confront the viewer with questions about identity, perception and the nature of beauty.
In the context of visual art, these distortions are intended to confront the viewer with questions about identity, perception and the human condition. Elongating and stretching of faces can have different effects: it draws attention to certain features or emotions, and it invites the viewer to reflect on the relative nature of beauty and normality.
In Isabelle Scheltjens’ work, where these distortions are present, it can be seen as an extension of her exploration in pointillism and the optical effects of light and colour. By narrowing and stretching faces, she invites the viewer to dig deeper into the concept of perspective and think of how our perception of reality can be altered or influenced by art. Dirk Neefs
Whether much has changed since the very beginning? “Nonetheless,” Drew says. “Isabelle has grown tremendously as a glass fusing artist. The combination of creativity, inspiration and technique has remained. She is still unique in her art form. Her new works dominate the space. Her feeling for glass is unparalleled. She’s just getting started.” Drew concludes.
Drew Aaron (Gallery Red, Mallorca)
