Glass act: Jeremy Maxwell Wintrebert’s cutting-edge work

I have a distinct memory of finger-painting with my mum when I was five – it was the first time I’d created something. I can still smell the paint and feel it on my fingers. As I grew up – I was born in Paris but grew up in West Africa – I became obsessed with materials, and expressing myself.

I continued using paint until I was 18, but also worked with wood, ceramics, matches… whatever I could get my hands on. I graduated from high school and had to find that material, and when I saw glass, it was obvious. It was hot and dripping and glowing: there was a magic to it.

I’d fallen in love, but I was also at a stage in my life when I just wanted to ride my motorcycle and work at the port. Then, at 21, I went through the windscreen of a car in a crash and, in the aftermath of hitting that glass, my one regret was that I hadn’t properly pursued that magical moment with its molten form.

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For six months, I was obsessed with books on the craft and then I went to southern California, found a glass-blower and started working. I wanted to express myself, but I couldn’t just go at it – you have to have humility because it’s such a complex, abstract science. I started working in production shops and for master glass-blowers, slowly picking up skills – I loved watching the different ways in which each one worked.

The first time you work with glass can be traumatising. When you open the oven door, it’s so hot, your body wants to go into defence mode and you need to force yourself through it and summon all your adrenaline. This stays with some glass-blowers their entire life: every time they work they are completely on edge.

The different cultures of my upbringing have each affected my work in their own way. If I wanted to be vulgar about it, I’d say the size of my work is the American side of things – I’m constantly trying to make things bigger. French culture, on the other hand, influences my aesthetic – I’m inspired by the Baroque. And then my bold mixing of colours comes from Africa – when I was growing up, I was always interested in the contrast between dark skin and bright clothing.

There’s a transcendental ritual to glass-blowing. You’re dipping into this material and, through your movements and gravity, mysterious objects appear, like you’re pulling them out of the fire. When I work, I go with the flow and, if something isn’t happening as I’d hoped it would, I just go with it. For me, the glass is most beautiful when it’s in the furnace, really hot, and I need to be as fluid as it is to get the best out of it. Work of this organic nature makes collaboration with the material vital – if it goes wrong, that’s just the way it goes. I’ve learnt to be patient. My biggest inspiration is always the last piece I’ve made – in fact, each has always led to the next. I can trace everything back to those first finger paintings.

JEREMY MAXWELL WINTREBERT was born in Paris and raised in Ivory Coast, Gabon and Cameroon. He has exhibited at Design Miami and the London Design Festival and was commissioned to create an installation, ‘Human Nature’, for the V&A; jeremyglass.com