Helene Blanche X Nina Nørgaard

Danish glass artist Nina Nørgaard and textile designer Helene Blanche met in 2016 and quickly engaged in a poetic dialog about artistic idioms, patterns, colours and glass. A mutual fascination of craftsmanship and vibrant materials developed and resulted in the wish of creating a series of a free-blown glass lamps. 

“We wished to design a series of glass table lamps with organic forms, transparent colour flow and a playful and artistic appearance,” explains Nina and Helene.

In 2017 the two designers launched THE MIRARI LAMP, a unique designed series of table lamps designed by Nina Nørgaard and Helene Blanche who named the lamp after the optical illusion ‘Mirage’, that causes one to believe that the glass base is made of two pieces. Each mouth-blown lamp base is unique and hand-made by Nina Nørgaard, who carefully blows the right amount of air through the narrow tube. 

“Glass has been an integral part of my life for as long as I can remember. My fascination with glass has to do with the absolute purity of glass as a vessel, unmatched as it is by any other material,” says Nina Nørgaard. 

The collection is furthermore presented with a series of hand-crafted lampshades, pleated in silk and hand painted with ink by Helene Blanche. Helene’s love for Japanese minimalism and the references are clearly shown in this hand-crafted collection due to its simplicity and pure expression.

“My wish was to create a series of artistic lampshades, so I decided to pleat and paint each shade by hand.The hand painted strokes of ink add to a lively and vibrant expression against the pleated silky surface,” says Helene Blanche about the work in progress.