Lilla Tabasso, one of the best european master artisans dedicated to glass sculpture and lampworking, was born in Milan in 1973, the city where she now lives and works. Following her studies at the Faculty of Biology at the University in Milan, she began working with Murano glass using the ancient techniques of blowing and modelling.

Her initial studies in biology are a key component to her research, which focuses on botany. Her still life works of incredible realism depict vases with flowers and draw from the infinite palette of nature’s colors and translucency. Fundamental to Lilla’s depiction are shades, mutations and imperfections: dry branches, faded flowers and wilting leaves. By focusing in such micro-detail on the forms and colors of every flower, Lilla’s works analyse how the expressive potential of nature exceeds that of mankind.

Her art pieces are lampworked glass using rods of Murano glass. A torch or lamp is primarily used to melt the glass. Once in a molten state the glass can be shaped through movement or through blowing.

Thanks to her past studies in botany and her “golden-hands”, Lilla Tabasso’s works revert back to the “still life” genre and give shape to an iper-verismo (hyper-realism) and an extreme naturalism. By placing itself on a scale of micro-detail within the forms and colors of every flower, this research analyses with lucidity and detachment how the expressive potentialities of nature exceed those of humankind.

Vanitas (Vanity) is a glass bouquet of once beautiful purple and white flowers made from lampworked Murano glass that stand wilted and rotting, falling over the edge of a colourless borosilicate glass vase. The stems of the bouquet stand in murky brown water. The work’s title, Vanity, questions the ephemeral nature of beauty.

Red and White Peonies are a bunch of blossoming red and white lampworked Murano glass peonies placed in a colourless borosilicate glass vase.

Impressione d’Autunno is a colourless cone-shaped borosilicate glass vase that holds a blossoming Murano glass bouquet with dry looking stems. Peony kopper kettle flowers vary from light pink to brown shades and oak acorns hang from the end of branches flanked with dry leaves. Bright red berries contrast with the wilted autumn flowers and oak leaves.

Rosa Canina (dog-rose) are white dog-rose petals that have started to wilt. They maintain their white colour and orange pistil but contrast with the leaves and berries that have started to wither at the end of their green stems. The Murano glass bouquet stands upright inside a classically shaped borosilicate glass vase.

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