Clarke's stained glass specialities set to go on display

Some of Oldham-born Brian Clarke's spectacular stained glass work

The Sainsbury Centre at the University of East Anglia is set to stage a spectacular exhibition exploring the stained glass of Brian Clarke, supported and organised in association with international arts services business HENI.

Oldham born and raised, Clarke is celebrated as the greatest stained glass artist in the world today and has collaborated globally with the most radical architects of our time.

Brian Clarke: The Art of Light, opens on June 17 and runs until October 14, 2018. 
 
His stained glass screens, which will debut in this exhibition, are considered to represent the most significant artistic and technical breakthrough in the history of this thousand year old medium. 
 
Over the last five decades, Clarke has consistently pushed the boundaries of stained glass as a medium, both in terms of technology, and its poetic potential.

His reputation is based on major installation projects all over the world, as well as individual works. 
 
The centrepiece of the exhibition will be 30 stained glass screens which the artist has produced over the last three years.

Clarke has been interested in the idea of the screen for many years.

He said: “I wanted to use natural light instead of synthetic light… the folding screen was an expression of that… they are a new kind of beauty.”

Clarke is the world’s most celebrated stainedglass artist, with a practice that extends to painting, sculpture, and mosaics.

Since the early 1970s, he has collaborated with many of the world’s most prominent architects, including Norman Foster, Renzo Piano, and Zaha Hadid, to create large-scale glass installations for buildings worldwide.

Clarke’s stained-glass works and paintings have been the subject of exhibitions at international museums, including the Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, Netherlands; Sezon Museum of Art, Tokyo, Japan; Munich Stadtmuseum, Germany; the Centre International de Vitrail, Chartres, France; the Corning Museum of Glass, USA; The Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt, Germany; the Vitro Musée, Romont, Switzerland.

He now lives and works in London.