Willi Haye | House of Glass Gallery — House of Glass Gallery

Willi Haye,
United States

Glass artist working in a sunlit studio surrounded by colorful fused-glass sculptures, tools, and equipment

Photo credit: Sven Dornkatt

Willi Haye is an American glass artist whose sculptural practice explores the relationship between light, colour, movement and negative space. Working in cast glass, she creates flowing forms in which internal openings and layered colour continually transform with light and perspective.

Curatorial Profile

Abstract curved blue and clear glass sculpture illuminated against a gray background

Willi Haye’s sculptural practice explores the relationship between the physical weight of cast glass and its capacity to transmit light. Her substantial, flowing forms are interrupted by openings and internal passages that introduce movement and prevent the sculptures from appearing fixed or closed.

Negative space becomes an active element within the work, drawing the eye through and around the form while allowing light to enter the glass from different directions. Colour adds another layer: multiple tones overlap at different depths, creating internal compositions that shift with the viewer’s position and changing light.

Haye’s extensive process of casting, grinding and polishing is integral to this visual experience. Polished surfaces reveal colour and depth, while matte areas partially obscure the interior, creating a continual tension between transparency and material solidity.

What gives Haye’s sculptures their distinctive presence is this balance of apparent opposites. They are physically substantial yet visually permeable, their weight countered by openings, colour and transmitted light. The result is a sense of transformation and movement within the solidity of cast glass.

House of Glass Gallery

Artist Statement

My work in cast glass is shaped by light, movement, color, and the spaces within a form. I’m drawn to flowing shapes that feel as though they are changing—opening, shifting, or moving through space.

Negative space is an important part of my work. Openings and passages are not simply empty areas; they allow light to travel through the sculpture and become part of the form itself. As the light changes, so does the perception of the sculpture.

Color is equally important to me. I often combine several colors within a single casting, allowing them to blend, overlap, and shift in unexpected ways. At times, these combinations create what feels like a painting suspended within the glass—an image that changes with the light and the viewer’s position.

Creating each piece is a slow and physical process. I begin by developing the form, then move through mold-making, casting, and many hours of grinding and polishing. I often combine polished and matte surfaces, allowing some areas to reveal the depth and color of the glass while others remain softer and more mysterious.

I am especially interested in the contrast between the weight and solidity of cast glass and its ability to transmit light. My sculptures explore that balance—between strength and fragility, solid form and open space, stillness and movement.