Kjell Engman

Humour, playfulness and joy characterise Kjell Engman´s artistry. The child within is captivated by his fantasy animals of glass, carefully shaped by Tuomo Nieminen in the blowing room. The collaboration between artist and glassblower is a close one. In his sculptures, light is a vital presence, but so are colour nuances and a design language of refined pattern combinations and surfaces. "I have worked to capture the movement and reinforce the expression of the figures with the light. They have a kind of rhythm," Kjell explains.

Born in 1946. Designer at Kosta Boda since 1978 with a studio at the Boda glassworks.

A mysterious, secretive man, who has been a designer at Kosta Boda since 1978. In his huge, full-packed studio at the Boda glassworks, Engman works with many varying projects. An infectious playfulness and boundless enthusiasm for storytelling motivate all that he does. Engaging and warm, he has many stories to tell. His fantasy animals captivate the child in each of us.

Kjell Engman had thorough artistic training in the 70´s. He studied at the Konstfack university college of arts, crafts and design in 1973-78. And he attended the Pilchuck Glass School in the USA in the summer of 1981. He is a gifted sketch artist and excellent colourist, which is what has won his glass the fame and exciting variety it has today.

He is also a very productive, hard-working industrial designer, personally responsible for a fifth of the selection in Kosta Boda’s catalogue. His products include many longrunning series from 1978 to today. His vigilance over the craft and its production secures his success. Engman has exhibited over 70 collections and separate exhibits, half of them outside Sweden. In addition, many of his works currently adorn public places within Sweden. His exam project at Konstfack´s ceramics course was also done in glass for the benefit of Boda glassworks. Engman´s playful, curious and ingenious conceptual world was already in full flora in his journeyman’s piece.

The symbolic world Engman uses in his exhibits is based on themes that have long been close to his heart. The Temple of Dreams is one of many themes that were born in the late 80´s, with guardians of the realm of fantasy on pedestals under canopies. This was also the introduction of Engman´s more everyday products, like the popular Bon Bon (1990) and Cancan (1991) series. They were first prototyped as props in larger theme exhibits.

The Circus theme, with clowns and an actual sawdust-filled ring, was another fanciful exhibit series in the early 1990´s. The examples demonstrate Engman´s special ability to introduce various utility glass products - and even one-of-a-kind pieces - in the interesting and amusing scenography of a much larger exhibit.

The Chakra (Wheel of Life) theme of 1996 was based on a philosophical tale of life, interpreted by Kjell Engman and inspired by Buddhism and the cyclical nature of life, creation, dynamics and change...

"Artistic glass is my experimental workshop," he says. "It´s actually a guerrilla job that interacts daily with the manufacture of everyday utility items. You can´t start creating art before you make sure that people have jobs ..."

In 1997 Kjell Engman created his smash success exhibit, the Water of Myth, a largescale installation where sight and sound interact to form a unique experience. Before the exhibit, he researched the source of life and collected water myths from cultures all over the world. The results, which were exhibited at museums throughout Sweden and at the Ebeltoft glass museum in Denmark, were astonishing. "Rejoice, ye pixie and sprite, ye naiads and dryads. In forest and on windy shore, twirl in merry dance. Water glitters cascading in delirious tones, like cresting waves under a new moon’s glance," he wrote about this exhibit.

"It´s fascinating to watch how a faint light pushes through the clouds and forms shadows. And how the shadows affect the changing reflections on the water," Engman muses about his relationship with the water and myths surrounding it. "How easy it is to let your imagination run away with you and make you see things - frightening or exciting. The forest leans its branches over me and I see the strangest creatures reaching out for me."

Light is a strong presence in his sculptures, as are colour and a design language with refined combinations of patterns and spaces. Humour, playfulness and joy define Kjell Engman´s artistry. In the late 90´s he exhibited dancers with massive, yet graceful bodies in glass. The colours are dark - red, brown, blue and green. The expressive figures are carefully shaped by Tuomo Nieminen in the blowing room. The artist and the glassblower work closely.

"I´ve tried to capture the movement, and to use the light to emphasise the expression of the dancers," Engman explains. "They have a sort of rhythm."

1998 saw the arrival of the Nobis service, with decorative strokes of blue and green in the pillar-like stems of the glasses. Each season the service has been expanded with more products for the party table. The 2000 collection includs Fossil, Macho and Snapshots. The Fossil decor lies like a historical footprint in the living rock, on vases and bowls of varying sizes. The Macho series are three different-shaped carafes for cognac, whiskey and vodka, intended for men. Heavy, irreverent and humoristic with iron bolts and fuses. Snapshots are fanciful glass showcases. Inside the small glass boxes are tiny, moving blue figures with clumsy, yet graceful bodies - the `Blue people´. In 2000, Kjell Engman had artistic glass exhibits in the USA, Australia and Europe. In the spring of 2001, Dino was released: Simple egg shapes in monumental format, in Engman´s characteristic earthy colour scale of yellow, red and green. In the autumn came Well. Five small sculptures of fairy-tale animals that will be endless sources of conversation. A real eye-catcher on any dinner table!