Glass artist Stine Bidstrup is one of the Danish artists in the exhibition Matter at Hand – Ten Artists in Denmark, showing at the American gallery Hostler Burrows with branches in L.A. and New York.

Glass artist Stine Bidstrup’s works are about seeing. Seeing many things at once without seeing everything. Seeing reflecting surfaces. Seeing through the material. Seeing patterns, edges and contrasts between matte and shiny, rough and smooth, transparent and opalized. Seeing mirror images, spatial qualities and depth from different angles. Seeing multiple shapes in one form and discovering art historical references as you form your own impressions.

Bidstrup’s colorful works position themselves between past and future. Inspired by historical stylistic periods and created using traditional techniques in a classic material, they are old-school. But by sampling techniques and raising the technical bar ever higher, Bidstrup deconstructs the traditional craft, blowing the glass into a customized hand-built mold. Through this technique, the familiar and characteristic organic glass blob at the end of the blowpipe changes into mannered form, conceived and designed by Bidstrup. The objects then re-emerge as new, ultra-cool hybrids, each one designed to highlight the unique characteristics of glass.

Bidstrup combines ancient techniques and methods with a strong conceptual grasp in a contemporary interpretation. The making of her sculptures requires time and skill in each stage; it is an intense and demanding process, involving three experienced makers at the final stage. Glass is not a material that can be manipulated once it is cast or blown – the artist only gets one shot at it. Those are tough odds – or disciplining conditions, depending on your perspective and inclination. But Stine Bidstrup wouldn’t have it any other way. The demanding tasks of creating the molds, designing the digital patterns that are fused into the glass, the high-intensity process of blowing in front of the hot kiln, and the final, painstaking stage of cleaning and polishing the finished object are all vital steps in a wonderful and unpredictable process.

Glass is an amazing material, according to Bidstrup, who in addition to training in Denmark and the United States also holds a bachelor’s degree in art history. Having a foundation in art history is a vital parameter for Bidstrup, who has a personal affinity for the groundbreaking cubists and avant-garde architects of the 20th century. And though Bidstrup’s works have a futuristic sci-fi feel – they can resemble miniature architecture made from the crystalline rods out of a Superman movie – they are all handblown. That is part of their fascination: they look like something that was coded on a computer, but in fact, they take weeks to make, with every element in the process shaped by hand in the workshop. They are composed of countless references, and while open to interpretation Bidstrup’s glass sculptures defy quick and easy decoding. Old-school glass transformed into objects too cool for school.