Bertil Vallien, born 1938, is one of the great revitalisers of Swedish glass in our time. He is a leading figure in a generation of Swedish glass artists that broke with the austere traditions of Scandinavian design. With innovative aesthetic and technical choices, he places glass in the realm of fine arts.

Under the Surface takes on themes that may be unfamiliar to the large audience that has long followed Bertil Vallien’s broad-ranging artistic career.

Sunken, broken ships and charred, ruined landscapes in a roughly formed black glass turn thoughts to existential questions about leave-taking, change and arrival in unfamiliar places, to feelings of sorrow and to life’s painful moments. They affect us like viewing a photojournalist’s disaster file, or witnessing an archaeological dig into the remains of a lost civilisation.

– When Mia Sundberg visited my studio to select pieces for the exhibition, without hesitation she went straight for these works which were spread throughout the space. All collected and placed within a context, we realized that they provided an interesting commentary on our time, Bertil says.

Showing
On Sunday October 15th at 2 PM Bertil Vallien will be doing a showing of the exhibition. Tickets are available for 120 kr and can be bought at the museum or here.

Background
Bertil Vallien is represented in The Absolut Art Collection with two pieces he created together with Ulrika Hydman Vallien. Both pieces are named Absolut Vallien. He is also represented in a number of museums worldwide, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC, Victoria & Albert in London, and Eremitaget in S:t Petersburg. Vallien has taught at Konstfack and several universities around the world and has throughout his international career had exhibitions in multiple renowned galleries that focus on glass, particularly in the USA.