This piece was made during an Artist in Residence at Tacoma Museum of Glass, WA, USA in 2016 and has found its final expression in 2018 with great amounts of enamel and severe sandblasting, including decals printed by the artist + one stock decal.

In 2016 my partner in crime, Steffen Dam and I had the great opportunity to work with the highly skilled gaffers at Tacoma Museum of Glass – they made huge cylinders for us in the hotshop and this large cylinder was one of them. I added silkscreen printed decals and it had quite a different look back then. After a couple of years I decided to change it entirely. A lot of enamel and several hours of sandblasting later, this is the new version.

The kissing couple is Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant from the Alfred Hitchcock film Notorious from 1946. The instructor circumvented the Production Code’s ban on kisses longer than three seconds by having his actors disengage every three seconds and then start again. This way the kissing scene lasted for 2-3 minutes and was even more intimate and erotic and of course made film history.

KISS! is about love, passion, sensuality, things separated and patched together again. Made of glass, a transparent material, this piece will change dramatically according to the light that exposes it, glowing when lit from the inside and shining when the light strikes the outer surface.