Verity Pulford (lives and works in Denbighshire, North Wales) is a glass artist whose practice explores the boundaries—practical, theoretical, and methodological—between science and imagination, giving form to organisms and objects inspired by the natural world. The textures, colours, and lines that emerge in her works stem from a careful observation of plant and animal life: lichens, algae, corals, and invertebrates become models of organic complexity that the artist translates into the delicate and luminous language of glass. The reflective surface of the material assigns light a central role within her practice: shadows, reflections, and refractions are not merely optical effects but structural components of the work itself. In this way, light becomes capable of evoking the vital essence of nature.
In the Mushrooms series, Pulford focuses her investigation on one of the most enigmatic forms in the natural world: the fungus. Her specimens, strikingly true to life, are created through a complex technical process that combines different glassmaking methods. The stems are produced using the lost-wax casting technique, which involves creating a mould around a wax model that is later melted out in the kiln, leaving a cavity to be filled with molten glass. The caps, on the other hand, are made by layering glass powders in multiple strata, which fuse during firing to produce tonal variations, speckles, and details of extraordinary naturalism. Some elements are then flame-worked, a method requiring great precision and sensitivity to shape the glass in its most unstable and incandescent state.
In the composition In A World of One’s Own, Pulford depicts a cluster of mushrooms at various stages of growth, as if documenting their biological maturation. Displayed within vitrines, these sculptures acquire a museological dimension, transforming into true exhibition specimens. They recall the collections of a Wunderkammer, where the primary intent is to foster study and observation according to the principles of a scientific methodology. Within the display cases, the inorganic dimension conceived by the artist and the organic one generated by nature coexist in a condition of parity. The artist invites the viewer to question what is the result of human craftsmanship and what comes directly from the natural world, incorporating vegetal elements collected en plein air. The bright, vivid colours chosen by Verity Pulford contribute to an atmosphere suspended between reality and imagination. Her works evoke the enchantment of magical realism, suggesting the possibility of an alternative nature in which matter comes alive with light and shades.
© Verity Pulford, In a World of One’s Own, from the series Mushrooms, 20x30cm x 3 cm,
pate de verre and lost wax cast glass with natural found objects in the middle one.
Photo credit : Stephen Heaton Photography
05/11/25
