Glass Art Inspired by Nature: Artists Who Capture the Natural World
June 20, 2026
Glass and nature have always shared a kind of kinship. Both move with light, both shift and flow, and both can be impossibly fragile and astonishingly resilient at the same time. It’s no surprise, then, that so many of the world’s leading glass artists turn to the natural world for their subject matter, whether they’re chasing the curl of a wave, the texture of a raptor’s feathers, or the slow grind of a glacier carving through stone. Here at Habatat, we’re proud to represent many of the artists doing this work today. Below, we’ve grouped some of our favorites by the corner of nature they explore.
Raven Skyriver – Leviathan, 2017 – 38 inches wide – Image courtesy of Habatat
The Ocean and Beyond
1. Raven Skyriver
Raven Skyriver grew up on Lopez Island in Washington’s San Juan Islands, surrounded by the Salish Sea, and that upbringing shows in every piece he makes. A member of the Tlingit Nation, Skyriver sculpts whales, salmon, octopuses, sea turtles, and seals with a level of anatomical accuracy that makes the glass feel like it’s still moving through water. His pieces aren’t just technical showcases, though — they’re a quiet form of advocacy, drawing attention to marine ecosystems under pressure from pollution and overfishing.
2. Michael Behrens
German artist Michael Behrens builds layered, abstract sculptures that evoke the hidden world beneath the ocean’s surface. His pieces don’t depict specific creatures so much as the feeling of being submerged — the way light fractures underwater, the sense of drifting currents, the mystery of depths we can’t see into. Behrens achieves this through intricate multilayered glasswork that captures both movement and stillness in the same form.
3. April Surgent
April Surgent works in cameo engraving, an exacting technique where she carves through layers of colored glass to reveal images beneath. Her subjects come directly from fieldwork: she has traveled to Antarctica, Alaska, and the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands as part of science research programs, engraving glaciers, coastlines, and marine wildlife she has observed firsthand. Surgent’s work doubles as a kind of climate record, documenting landscapes that are changing faster than most of us realize.
Wild Things: Birds, Beasts, and Backyard Creatures
4. William Morris
No conversation about nature in glass is complete without William Morris, one of the most influential figures in the American Studio Glass movement. After more than a decade as Dale Chihuly’s chief gaffer, Morris struck out on his own and began sculpting glass to resemble ancient bones, animal skulls, antlers, and ritual vessels — work that draws on Egyptian, Native American, and prehistoric imagery to explore humanity’s old, often-forgotten bond with the natural world. Morris retired from glassblowing in 2007, but his influence runs deep through the next generation of nature-focused glass artists; both Karen Willenbrink-Johnsen and, later, Raven Skyriver got their start working in his orbit at Pilchuck.
5. Shelley Muszylowski Allen
Shelley Muszylowski Allen sculpts horses, bison, elephants, and other large animals with a presence that feels almost spiritual. Rather than rendering her subjects with photographic precision, she blends realism with abstraction, capturing the spirit and power of an animal rather than just its likeness. The result is work that feels both monumental and tender at once.
6. Karen Willenbrink-Johnsen
Karen Willenbrink-Johnsen grew up the daughter of a naturalist in Ohio, and that early education in trees, birds, and animal tracks has never left her. Now working out of Washington State, often alongside her husband and collaborator Jasen Johnsen, she’s known especially for her studies of raptors — hawks, owls, and eagles rendered with the kind of close attention only a longtime birdwatcher could bring. Her sculptures aim to freeze a living moment in time, full of motion and detail.
7. Claire Kelly
Claire Kelly’s whimsical glass creatures sit at the intersection of playfulness and environmental concern. Drawing on Venetian glassblowing traditions, she builds colorful, fantastical landscapes populated by animals and insects that double as gentle commentary on our relationship with the natural world. Her work manages to be approachable and thought-provoking in equal measure, making it a favorite for collectors and conservation-minded audiences alike.
8. Sibylle Peretti
Sibylle Peretti grew up surrounded by the forests of Bavaria, and that landscape has stayed with her throughout her career. Working in kiln-formed panels and cast sculpture, she creates dreamlike scenes where children, animals, and woodland settings intertwine, often exploring the uneasy and beautiful relationship between humans and the wild. Her work has a quiet, fairy-tale quality that lingers with viewers long after they’ve moved on
Botanical Forms
9. Kathleen Elliot
Kathleen Elliot flameworks glass into vines, leaves, branches, and blossoms so delicate they look like they could wilt. Her “Natural Botanicals” series draws directly from plant life she observes, while her “Imaginary Botanicals” invent entirely new species that don’t exist anywhere but in her studio. Underlying all of it is a simple belief: that we need more reminders to slow down and notice the small wonders around us.
10. Dean Bensen & Demetra Theofanous
This husband-and-wife duo builds immersive installations that blur the line between sculpture and landscape. Combining glasswork with natural materials like leaves and organic textures, Bensen and Theofanous create colorful, dreamlike scenes that invite viewers to step inside rather than simply observe. Their collaborative pieces feel less like single artworks and more like small ecosystems of their own.
Landscapes and the Forces That Shape Them
11. Peter Bremers
Peter Bremers travels to some of the most remote and dramatic landscapes on Earth — glaciers, icebergs, towering peaks — and translates what he finds there into monumental cast glass sculptures. He leans heavily on glass’s optical properties, using light and clarity to recreate the otherworldly feeling of standing in front of something ancient and immense. Few artists capture the sublime scale of nature quite like Bremers does.
12. Weston Lambert
Weston Lambert fuses glass directly with stone, treating his sculptures almost like geology happening in fast-forward. By laminating glass into semi-precious rock and then grinding and polishing the surface, he compresses processes that normally take millennia into a single object you can hold in your hand. The result speaks to permanence, erosion, and the strange tension between something as fragile as glass and something as ancient as stone.
13. K. William LeQuier
Vermont-based K. William LeQuier got his start sandblasting decorative patterns onto blown glass vessels before evolving toward something more organic: sculptures that mimic the movement of wind, water, and erosion. His layered, carved sheet glass pieces seem to twist and ripple, evoking crashing waves or ice spreading across a window. LeQuier has spent decades refining a technique that makes glass look like it’s still in motion.
Abstract Nature: Light, Weather, and the World Beyond
14. Alex Bernstein
Alex Bernstein’s architectural, cast glass sculptures combine bold geometric forms with organic curves drawn from the natural world. His work plays with the tension between transparency and opacity, light and shadow, creating pieces that feel simultaneously engineered and grown. Bernstein’s pieces reward close looking, with details that shift depending on where the light falls.
15. Martin Blank
Martin Blank has spent decades exploring what he calls “carving space” — using glass to define negative space the way nature defines a riverbed or a canopy of branches. His abstract landscapes echo the structures found throughout the natural world, from the way water moves to the way trees grow, while his large-scale public installations bring that same organic sensibility into civic spaces around the country.
16. Richard Jolley
Richard Jolley’s figurative glass sculptures explore the human experience as inseparable from nature and the wider world. His monumental installation “Cycle of Life,” housed at the Knoxville Museum of Art, depicts six phases of human existence using thousands of blown glass and steel elements, weaving together themes of growth, contemplation, and the natural cycles we all move through.
17. Ekin Deniz Aytaç & Josh Davids
This husband-and-wife team blows, diamond-cuts, and sand-engraves glass into glowing, layered discs inspired by elemental and celestial forces — storms, moons, tide pools, and the play of light through water. Aytaç, originally from Turkey, and Davids, from Colorado, bring together two very different cultural backgrounds in work that reflects on how place and nature shape our sense of self.
Nature has been inspiring glass artists for as long as the medium has existed, and the artists above prove there’s no end to the forms that inspiration can take — from the literal (a sea turtle you’d swear was breathing) to the entirely abstract (a storm rendered in light and color). We’re honored to represent each of these artists at Habatat. Visit www.habatat.com to view available works, or reach out to us at info@habatat.com with any questions.
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