Corning Museum of Glass

Sylvie Vandenhoucke’s practice is a platform for exploring questions of perception and examining the boundaries of the visible and the invisible. The changing degree of discernibility of the work emerges from a thorough investigation of the subtle optical changes of material and surfaces caused by the passage of natural light in a particular spatial situation. The work has gradually evolved from small objects to in-­‐situ installations and interventions. It is usually described as poetic and is reminiscent of the gesture of drawing.

The light­‐sensitive visual language in the work originates from an intense research in glass and the exploration of new directions in pâte de verre making, technically as well as visually. These investigations were imbedded in this ancient technique but were dealing with contemporary practice, methods and materials in order to push the boundaries of the known and the possible.

Sylvie Vandenhoucke holds a MA and MPhil from the Royal College of Art (RCA), London. Her work can be found in many private and public collections worldwide including Museum of Arts and Design (New York), Toledo Museum of Art (Ohio), Chrysler Museum of Art (Virginia), Royal Museum of Scotland (UK), Musée du Verre de Sars-­‐Poteries (France) and Design Museum Ghent (Belgium).

As an academic, she taught at several universities in Europe and from 2009 till 2012 she was the Visual Arts Research Office Executive at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp, Belgium. She was also an invited External Examiner for Doctoral Degrees at the RCA London in 2011 and 2012.

As an active researcher she was granted an Arts and Humanities Research Council Grant (UK, 2006) and a Research Fellowship of the Higher Education Funding Council of England (UK, 2007) for her groundbreaking research in pâte de verre. More recently, she received a research grant (Belgium, 2011) for developing a collaborative drawing research project.