Glass Flower Sculptures Explore the Nature of Ephemerality

Image via lillatabasso_glass_and_jewelry/Instagram

Lilla Tabasso is a talented Italian glass artist who captures the full life cycle of flowers from fresh blossoms to wilting ones.

She often includes the word “Vanitas” in the title of her delicate botanical sculptures, a reference to the 17th-century Dutch still-life painting of genre, containing symbols of death or change as a reminder of their inevitability.

Tabasso’s realistic artwork is rooted in her background as a biologist. She crafts decaying flowers with the same precision she renders on those bloomed flowers. Besides her beautiful vase-based pieces, she also makes jewelry and other art objects.