Artwork description: Glass as both window and mirror: a glass triptych of a bronze swan before a glass building, seen through the window on one face, its mirrored reflection on the other.
Artwork description long: In Their Hands (2026) is a self-supporting glass triptych depicting a scene of a bronze swan statue set before a glass-fronted building. One face shows the scene as seen through the building’s window; the other shows its mirrored reflection on the same surface. The reflection is so sharp that the bronze bird seems to be flying straight at the glass, about to collide with the very building casting its image back, the same fate real birds meet against windows across the city. The two faces share the same silhouette, yet differ subtly from each other. The swan seen through the window and the swan caught in its reflection are almost, but never quite, the same image. Transmission and reflection are not fixed properties of glass but separate events happening on the same surface under different conditions of light. Folded, the triptych’s three panels, echoing the building’s own three-panel façade, take the shape of two cupped hands. The balance between what passes through the glass and what bounces off keeps shifting with the light throughout the day, morning to evening, so the image the panels hold is never quite the same twice.
Artwork description long: In Their Hands (2026) is a self-supporting glass triptych depicting a scene of a bronze swan statue set before a glass-fronted building. One face shows the scene as seen through the building’s window; the other shows its mirrored reflection on the same surface. The reflection is so sharp that the bronze bird seems to be flying straight at the glass, about to collide with the very building casting its image back, the same fate real birds meet against windows across the city. The two faces share the same silhouette, yet differ subtly from each other. The swan seen through the window and the swan caught in its reflection are almost, but never quite, the same image. Transmission and reflection are not fixed properties of glass but separate events happening on the same surface under different conditions of light. Folded, the triptych’s three panels, echoing the building’s own three-panel façade, take the shape of two cupped hands. The balance between what passes through the glass and what bounces off keeps shifting with the light throughout the day, morning to evening, so the image the panels hold is never quite the same twice.