Building sites and agricultural areas are typically described by the utilitarian operations that shape them—rugged, harsh, and often back-breaking. They are spaces that resist softness, built quite literally around force and tension. Artist Pia Hinz flips this idea on its head as she explores the conceptual and material relationship between strength and vulnerability.

Living and working between Ardèche, Amsterdam, and Arles, France, Hinz has been working with stained glass for the past three years. She focuses much of her work on objects that one might find in environments of labor, such as construction or farming. Her sculptures take on an array of recognizable forms including hammers, screws, traffic cones, tractor doors, scythes, rope, and more.

By introducing glass, Hinz subverts the practical purpose of tools and machinery as each object emerges antithetical to its original form. “Here, fragility and invincibility intertwine,” says an exhibition statement from La Menuiserie 2, a residency the artist completed in 2024. “By replacing functional materials with fragile ones, the artist questions our relationship to objects, their use value, and their narrative potential.”

As light passes through the artist’s work, it spills across surrounding spaces and results in shifts of color. Pieces like “MON PRÉCIEUX” and “Néon sacré” are elegantly adorned with abstract, geometric patterns that are shaped by winding metal lines. For Hinz, working with the material is, as she describes, an “urge to retrace the relation between light and space.”

The artist is currently working on a permanent stained glass monument for a building in Paris. Find more on Instagram.

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Like a miniature chapel with enough space for one person to stand comfortably, Judith Schaechter’s glowing installation, “Super/Natural,” invites viewers to reflect on nature. An exhibition of the same name just opened at Claire Oliver Gallery and pays homage to biophilia, a theory positing that humans seek connections with nature through an innate attraction. Schaechter celebrates this propensity with a cornucopia of florals, insects, birds, and other imaginative organic forms.

“The vernacular of stained glass is one of worship and mythology,” Schaechter says. “Super/Natural turns this a bit on its head, creating a secular sanctuary for contemplating beauty, nature, and our relationship to it.” The sculpture, which comprises 65 panes and took nearly two years to complete, is topped with a small geodesic dome and stands about eight feet tall.

“Super/Natural” came about partly as a result of Schaechter’s residency at the Penn Center for Neuroaesthetics, which focuses on a sub-discipline of cognitive neuroscience concerned with how the brain processes aesthetic experiences. The artist attended lab meetings with researchers and scientists and was influenced by explorations into the “relationships between art, beauty, morality, and the brain,” the gallery says.

“My goal is to invite viewers into a deeply personal, immersive experience that explores the connections between self, nature, and imagination,” Schaechter adds in a statement. “We are ultimately connected to—not just observing—nature.”

Super/Natural continues through May 23 in Harlem. Find more on the artist’s Instagram, along with insights into her research and process on her blog.

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With a stained glass window, light filters through to illuminate narrative scenes or geometric patterns, but it’s primarily the window itself that draws our attention. For Lesley Green of Bespoke Glass, these vibrant compositions certainly aren’t limited to these traditional apertures. “One of my personal obsessions is trying to convince people to hang glass on the wall instead of in the window, so you can really experience the pure color and texture of the glass,” she tells Colossal.

Bespoke Glass creates a wide range of aesthetic and functional forms, conceived for both residential and commercial interiors. Some are designed to be screens or separators, such as behind a bar or between tables in a restaurant. Others are more sculptural, such as her three-dimensional sculptures that project onto the wall when the sun shines through them, interacting with local shadows. This display method also highlights the inherent textures of the glass itself, from waves to ridges to mottled patterns.

Using a hand-cut, traditional copper foil method of creating the stained glass, Green has also innovated some studio-developed techniques to produce three-dimensional objects. “Craftsmanship is extremely important to me as well,” she says. “Precise cuts and especially smooth solder lines are part of everything my studio produces.”

All pieces are available to be commissioned in custom colorways, and Green is also working on larger-scale versions of the sculptural works, plus multiple-piece collections designed to installed on the wall. See more on Instagram.

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