Adriano Berengo
president of the Berengo studio’s, Murano:
‘It is interesting to translate the work of Wouter Stips into glass because it radiates, it is articulate. It is full of humour and stimulates you to be happy. Glass is an appropriate material for Wouter because it enables eloquent expression of his creativity. In the genesis of the glass object, there is mention of dual authorship: the artist and the glass expert who translates the artist’s design into glass. During the creation of the figures, Wouter is continuously present, controlling the process. The result is very close to the original but, of course, it is always different. Wouter understands that working with glass requires a certain flexibility. If the artist is contented with the translation into glass, if it corresponds to his idea, his creativity, his train of thought, then our glass is worthy of the epithet ‘art’.
Dr Helmut Ricke, the director of the Kunst Palast and Glasmuseum Hentrich in Düsseldorf believes that only truly great artists qualify to have their work translated into glass. I am convinced that Wouter Stips is one of those artists.
He has a completely different personality to an artist such as Ripollés or Picasso, for example. The tension, the stratification, the play with and within his work, is his play. It is an interplay between himself and present-day art. I believe that the success of his work is something very personal.”
