GLASS PANELS

Astri Reusch began creating glass panels in 1965, using found materials and having taught herself the techniques of leaded glass: creating armatures by soldering lead and copper foil to support and provide structure to the glass elements. Fascinated by the particular qualities of glass as a medium of expression by manipulating light through transparency, translucence, refraction and reflectivity, she soon started to include three-dimensional and non-traditional objects in her panels: prisms, lenses, antique glass lantern slides, mirrors, metal components, etc. She also experimented with creating panels incorporating multiple layers of superimposed sheets of glass with varying degrees of transparency and translucence, using techniques of sandblasting, acid etching and the inclusion of glass and metal objects between the layers.

Her works in these media coincided with the emergence of the Studio Glass movement in the 1970s, expanding the boundaries of what could be done with glass panels while other artists were experimenting with blown, cast and fused glass. In 1979, she first received international recognition of her work when two of these panels were chosen as the only works by a Canadian artist in the seminal New Glass international survey exhibition organized by the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Corning Museum of Glass which documented this movement.