Abstractions in Glass

Owen Johnson is a Glass and Ceramic graduate from the Royal College of Art who creates work of abstract imagery and objects that re-imagine patterns, closely linked to abstract painting.

Owen appropriates existing decorative patterns and motifs, taking them through a process of material translation, by employing craft methods like the Murrini glass technique.

Continue reading to see more of Owen’s beautifully vibrant pieces.

Murrini was chosen as the material language because of its ability to create patterns with colour, depth and unlimited variation. The Murrini technique involves the heating up and stretching of canes or sheets of coloured glass, arranged in designs that become very small when elongated. These stretched lengths are then cut in cross-section to form mosaic tiles. Developed by the Greeks and Egyptians, the Murrini technique has been under constant development for the last two thousand years. Johnson has further refined the technique, incorporating new methods of production, such as water jet cutting.

An artwork is created from each set of Murrini in the form of a glass panel, with each panel exploring its pattern in a unique way.

“My practice examines pattern from a position of historically informed irreverence, by copying and mistranslating historically significant ornamental pattern structures and motifs through an extensive glass process. My method of mistranslation takes a pattern from one material language, into my chosen material language of glass murrine, changing its contexts, structures and details, while maintaining its intent, its ‘spirit’.”

Untitled (Paisley Pattern) No. 4 & Untitled (Moresque Pattern) No. 5 exhibited at Mint

The resulting artworks combine the utopian ideals of abstract expressionists like Mark Rothko with the minimalism of craftsmen and sculptors like Martin Puryear, alongside the lyrical expression of glass artist Giles Bettison, and the historically informed irreverence of Francis Bacon.

Each work incorporates traditional pattern-developing methods like repetition, motif recognition, geometry and layering, with methods of abstraction like reconstruction, non-repetition, fragmentation and distortion, extending each patterns expressive possibilities.

See more of Owen’s beautiful and striking imagery below!

Images © Owen Johnson & Mint