Isabelle Scheltjens
For a number of years, the Belgian art world has been home to a striking, young artistic talent: Isabelle Scheltjens.
With her unique glass-composition portraits, Isabelle Scheltjens breaks through the boundaries of classic figuration. Glass mosaics, with two or three layers fused on top of each other, create something unique: artworks with a three-dimensional charge to them. Isabelle Scheltjens finds inspiration in
a broad palette of sources, her work testifying to a deep knowledge of art and its history.
Isabelle Scheltjens had been interested in art since she was young. She studied at SISA, the Antwerp City Institute for Decorative Arts and Crafts. The magnificent glass design of her husband Dirk Neefs inspired Isabelle to work with the same material.
It took years of intense practicing and juxtaposing countless of pieces of coloured glass to refine her method and truly master the colour theory. She developed a unique glass-fusing technique, whereby pieces of glass in different colours, sizes and textures are melted together at approximately 800°C.
The colourful pieces of glass are like the dots of paint used by the pointillists: forming an abstract image up close, yet a dramatic and precise portrait from a distance.
Isabelle achieves striking optical effects with her technique: she captures the dance of light and colour in a way that a photograph transforms it into a black & white or sometimes a colourful portrait – the fascinating result of a process that relies on the perceptive ability of the eye and mind of the viewer.
