How Verre Églomisé Artist Miriam Ellner Paints With Glass

You started as a dancer and worked in set design. How has your background in movement influenced the way you approach composition, texture, and light in your work?

It’s all related! When I was studying decorative painting at Van Der Kelen Logelain in Brussels, [co-founder Alfred Van der Kelen] always talked about movement. Verre églomisé is all about movement, rhythm, flow. Dancing is ethereal and of the moment, which resonates with me. Same with églomisé—it has this ethereal quality and creates illusions. It’s hard to place and changes with the light. It all circulates together. Intuition is one of my strongest traits, and I gravitate toward things that resonate with me. I didn’t know what églomisé was when I was dancing, but I knew making would be part of my trajectory.

Verre églomisé is a centuries-old technique, yet your work feels modern and fresh. How have you approached the medium to make it more relevant in contemporary design?

Some people go wide, but once I narrow down, I go deep. Materials feed into églomisé, and you can make it as contemporary as you want. The world is my influence. Sure, I travel and go to museums, but the world at large is where I take things from. I’m naturally a risk taker, which has worked to my advantage. I get visions of my work and ask myself “well, how the hell am I gonna do that?” That usually leads me to something else entirely. Once you understand your materials, even if you go somewhere by accident, there are possibilities you want to explore. 

Has there been a commission that has challenged you creatively?

Certain designers do that. Michael Simon is very knowledgeable, and he wanted to understand everything about verre églomisé. We worked on a piece for a house in Arizona with a beautiful vista of the mountains, so we talked about creating a mountain scene behind the dining room. I wanted to bring it into the 21st century, so I drew mountains and made it somewhat cubist. He then gave me pictures of the different textures throughout the house, so I started incorporating different geographical details into the glass. 

Brian McCarthy asked me to work on a whole room for a house in Gstaad. I made a drawing of the Swiss Alps and created 50 different textures in a blue palette moving from warmer to cooler colors up into ices and whites, because it’s Switzerland. At that point, you just have to trust me! I have a basic plan and there’s preparatory work, but do I know where I’m going to put everything? It has to speak to me, and Brian gets that. 

Your work is about to go on public view for the first time. How did you approach the show to reveal new dimensions of your work and creative process?

I’m constantly evolving. Even though I work with certain designers all the time, many haven’t seen my recent spring paintings. Most of what’s in the exhibition still resonates with me and shows the breadth of what I can achieve. Hopefully designers can recognize works they’ve seen but also say “I didn’t know she did this!” We’re showing paintings that are much more substantial or abstract than some designers have seen me make before.

Many of your pieces interact with light in dynamic ways. How do you harness reflection and illumination as part of your artistic language?

When I’m working on glass paintings, it’s harnessing the whole spectrum. You can work with the reflection, light, glass, beads, and everything else, but I love that balance. It’s about the detail and subtlety that you can achieve, which is beautiful. On my screens, for example, you can see metals clearly, but in another light, the colors dance together. 

Are there any new directions or techniques you’re eager to explore?

I’m playing around with doing relief work on the front of the glass. If you’ve been to Studio Gang’s new wing at the American Museum of Natural History, the gem section is fabulous. I want to incorporate more minerals and gems. I also took my recent glass experiments and smashed them all together, and layered them as a composition onto a new piece. 

Finding new materials is an ongoing constant. I’m always curious and collecting material. I get little samples of new material all the time just to see what they do. I find fabulous things. It’s a big world out there! 

See more images of the exhibition below.

A version of this article first appeared in print in our 2025 Spring Issue in the Artful Life section.  Subscribe to the magazine.