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Karen Browning experiments with black cast glass spheres and their capacity for surface reflection. Double Trouble (2019), is cast in black glass using the lost wax process with subsequent cold-working – polishing and sandblasting – then gilded with 24-carat gold. The artist’s pre-occupation with the mirror motif draws consciously on complex historical reference, while focusing on the immediate presence of the glass artefact and its making. In the play of inside and outside, physical, cultural and mental dimensions, past, present and future, all surface in the visible moment of the glass studio.
As Browning writes, of her interest in mirrors and their various depths:
In these pieces I explore the historical and mystical side of black mirrors, traditionally used for scrying (looking into the future) whilst also combining this with historical use of black mirrors by landscape painters such as [the French baroque painter] Claude Lorrain [c.1600-1682]. Mirrors create another space, altering or confirming a sense of self or place, and through deception, illusion, and reflection provide a luminous space for contemplation.
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