Inventiveness, playfulness, reuse, and chance, above all chance. These are the qualities that have defined Tejo Remy’s work for more than twenty-five years. As a designer and artist, he rarely begins with a fixed plan. Instead, his work emerges through materials, experimentation, and the surprises that reveal themselves during the making process.

For Remy, designing often starts with a simple observation: a found object, an unexpected shape, or a chance encounter between materials. In his studio, materials do not function merely as raw ingredients for a preconceived outcome, but as active participants in an ongoing investigation. It is a place where looking, feeling, testing, and starting over are fundamental to the creative process. The unexpected moments, the so-called happy accidents, frequently become the catalyst for new ideas and discoveries.

The series Solid Air, Liquid Colour is a direct result of this way of working. At Galerie kreo, Remy presents 43 unique glass vases that have emerged from years of extensive exploration of glass, form, and chance. Each vase is different, each shape has its own history, and every distortion tells something about the process from which it originated.

A crucial part of the research for these works took place during Remy’s residency at Cirva in Marseille, the International Glass and Visual Arts Research Centre. Over a two-year period, during which he spent ten working weeks in Marseille, he collaborated with specialized glassmakers and technicians to develop new approaches to glassblowing, glass casting, and mould-making. Throughout this process, he explored how materials such as steel, wood, concrete, plaster, reed, and mesh could leave their traces within the glass.

Working with moulds proved particularly fascinating. A negative form is transformed into a positive one during the blowing process, yet the result can never be completely controlled. The hot glass partly follows the constraints of the mould and partly obeys its own logic. It is precisely within this tension between control and unpredictability that the distinctive visual language of the series emerges. Some vases are subtly distorted, while others seem almost frozen in motion. They capture the moment when liquid glass solidifies, while retaining the energy of its transformation. The title Solid Air, Liquid Colour refers to this paradox. Glass is shaped by air and heat, yet it appears to remain fluid. The material is solidified and stable, but still conveys a sense of movement, softness, and flow. Colour plays an equally essential role. Unexpected nuances emerge: warm reds and oranges reminiscent of sunsets, cool blues, soft greens, and transparent shades that change with the light.

Together, the vases form a visual record of a research process that continuously opens up new directions. They demonstrate how design can evolve not only from ideas, but also from experimentation, material knowledge, and a willingness to embrace the unexpected. In Tejo Remy’s work, making and discovering are inseparable.

With Solid Air, Liquid Colour, Tejo Remy once again demonstrates his unique ability to bring together material, experimentation, and imagination in objects that are both surprising and inevitable. Each vase is a snapshot of a process in which control and chance continuously challenge, enrich, and shape one another.

Natalie Dubois
Curator, Centraal Museum Utrecht, The Netherlands

Works produced and crafted at the International Glass and Visual Arts Research Centre (Cirva), with support from the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

© Alexandra de Cossette Courtesy Galerie kreo