Initially, Nanning works with ceramics before devoting herself to glass. In 1979, she graduates from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, at the same time as Geert Lap and Babs Haenen, forming the core of a new generation of Dutch ceramicists who gain international recognition. In 1994 – at the invitation of the National Glass Museum and Royal Leerdam Glass Factory – Nanning experiments with glass for the first time, an unfamiliar and distant material for her. She shapes her first sculptures by cutting and polishing the blown objects.
Over the past twenty-five years, Nanning has built an impressive glass oeuvre represented in numerous museum and private collections both domestically and abroad. Many of Nanning’s objects and installations suggest spontaneous growth, resembling crystals, jellyfish, flowers, or microorganisms. They elicit tension and demonstrate that the dichotomy of “naturally formed” and “handmade” is less rigid than often believed.
“In the center of the circle, there is a point of rest. Movement comes from that point. And that’s what I do; capture the essence of movement and growth in my work.”
– Barbara Nanning
Nanning’s unique visual language and way of working are largely influenced by her prolonged stays in the epicenter of glass production in Europe: Nový Bor. Every year she travels to this Czech city, where she collaborates with experienced glassblowers to create the most surprising shapes and structures
