Meet the Maker Using Glass to Bring Colors to Life
London-based artist Amy Cushing crafts ethereal sculptures that evoke the flora and fauna of her travels through Mexico and Southeast Asia
London-based artist Amy Cushing is known for her ethereal glass sculptures that almost look botanical in nature, however, the works are far from delicate. “I don’t want to make glass flowers. That doesn’t interest me,” she says. “Some people say [my sculptures] look like a cactus or fancy cocktail, and I can see that. But they have this strange juxtaposition of being very beautiful but also quite Brutalist as well. They are really solid and quite heavy.”
Cushing got her first taste of glasswork during childhood. Her mother studied stained glass and vitreous enamel in the 1960s, and Cushing grew up in London surrounded by her work. She even kept a small piece of fused glass her mother had made—a teasured example that looks alike to the artist’s own output, a discovery which sparked a full-circle moment. “I am working in a very similar way to the experiments my mom did,” Cushing says.
After five years at Chelsea Art School, where she trained in multiple disciplines, Cushing developed a practice that includes ceramics, mosaic, and glass. “I was never a purist. I never stuck to one discipline or one way of using it or one way of displaying it,” she says. “For me, there weren’t really any rules. I just kept crossing over.” The one constant: color. “That’s my driving creative force. I am a glass artist because I choose to work with glass to bring that color to life.”
Like many artists, Cushing’s early career was a hustle. She worked the door at London clubs during the late-80s and early-90s acid-house era, while also making art for the scene. On the side, she took a stand at Portobello Market and sold glass ashtrays, jewelry, mirrors, and frames she’d made. All her earnings went into more supplies.
By the late 90s, Cushing was exhibiting at London’s 100% Design fair (later rebranded as Design London) and had crafted a 30-piece collection produced by the Venetian glassmaker Gino Cenedese e Figlio. The array garnered a substantial amount of press and was sold at high-end retailers including Harrods. She later began making large-scale commissions for corporate spaces—glass compositions suspended from great heights, including a work 18-stories tall. The process was exceedingly technical, and she often felt restricted by the client’s very specific brief.
Then came the COVID lockdown. “Corporate work dried up, offices were closed. There was no reason to allocate a budget for artwork in the office space.” Cushing began to develop Paradise—an idea that had been “bubbling away” for years. Paradise grew from memories of traveling through Mexico, Southeast Asia, and other tropical destinations, where she was enchanted by the flora, fauna, and different qualities of light, especially as it played on water. Making these sculptures served as a form of escapism when travel wasn’t possible. “It was like I was in the tropics,” she recalls.
While the resulting pieces look simple, they are anything but. Each begins with a blown glass cylinder, to which Cushing adds five individually made kiln-formed “finials.” She builds their colors and patterns through repeated firings, cutting, grinding, and layering. “I’ve never really got it to how I want it to be without it going in and out of the kiln at least three or four times, sometimes five,” she explains. Cushing may make as many as eight finials to select five; it can take three to four months to complete one working, which ranges from 12.5 to 33 inches tall.
She will let the pieces sit, and then later return to them with fresh eyes. “That space and that time for contemplation is really valuable and very much part of the process,” she says.
Her practice was built on decades of experimentation and an almost obsessive attention to color, but she claims perfection is not the goal. “Perfection doesn’t say creative to me. That says you’re working within such a controlled constraint that you might not be able to evolve,” she muses. “Whereas if something is immaculate it is so beautifully thought out and well-considered. And maybe not everybody notices that, and that’s fine. But the few people who do notice it, that means everything to me.”
Amy Cushing is represented by Vessel Gallery in London.