Amy Cushing: London Glass Artist Behind the Paradise Series

Key facts

• Amy Cushing is a London-based glass artist known for ethereal sculptures with a solid, heavy, Brutalist quality.
• Her mother studied stained glass and vitreous enamel in the 1960s, and Cushing kept a small piece of her mother's fused glass.
• She trained at Chelsea Art School for five years in multiple disciplines and works across ceramics, mosaic, and glass.
• In the late 1980s and early 1990s she worked the door at London clubs and sold glass items at Portobello Market.
• By the late 1990s she exhibited at London's 100% Design fair, later rebranded Design London.
• She produced a 30-piece collection with Venetian glassmaker Gino Cenedese e Figlio, sold at Harrods.
• She created large-scale corporate commissions, including a suspended work 18 stories tall.
• The COVID lockdown prompted her to develop the Paradise series, inspired by travels through Mexico and Southeast Asia.
• Each Paradise piece starts with a blown glass cylinder and five kiln-formed finials selected from as many as eight.
• One working takes three to four months and ranges from 12.5 to 33 inches tall.
• Amy Cushing is represented by Vessel Gallery in London.