Better Off Dead

Better Off Dead is one of the British artist Elliot Walker's ongoing body of still life artworks. These compositions have the poise of classical paintings. Symbols of domestic life are carefully balanced with the transient. Inspired by Memento Mori artworks, Walker has hot free sculpted in glass, the white skull that sits balanced on the two black books. The arrow actually can be removed from the apple for shipping.

Each unique component is painstakingly created from glass and although in the artist's vision there is a set way these should be displayed, Walker also invites the individual to reposition the pieces as they choose. Each installation is placed upon their own black pool of glass, a base in which the artwork is housed.

As one of a handful of glassblowers in the world who focus solely on a technique called 'Massello', it takes extreme dexterity, speed and precise temperature control to sculpt and master the molten glass. Combining a novelist’s ability for storytelling with his astonishing array of skills, Walker literally sculpts his glass, creating artworks that are the essence of curiosity, inviting the viewer closer.

In the artist’s own words; “The process of coaxing a complex form out of the liquid glass is unlike working with any other material. The pieces are not cast, carved or ground into shape, but modelled from a cooling liquid so that until the very last second the sculpture is a moving living entity, frozen in time as the glass sets”

After graduating from Bangor University with a psychology degree, Elliot Walker discovered glass. With its vast spectrum of colour and texture, its ability to mimic other materials, it provided Walker with the ultimate palette to create his three dimensional compositions and sculptures.

He then went on to gain his Masters Degree in Applied Arts from Wolverhampton University and has been awarded the Frederic Stuart Memorial Fund by the Worshipful Company of Glass Sellers. He has exhibited extensively within the UK with his work represented within the Broadfield House Museum collections.

Elliot Walker is one of the UK’s finest rising glass stars and in his relatively short glass blowing career, has already become one of the most active and inspiring artists of his generation.