Ricardo Hoineff

Tell us about yourself.

Born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1968, 300 meters from the Ipanema beach, on the age of 22 moved to Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1991 (now Czech Republic) to complete my studies in Scenography, Set Design. Finished my masters in 1998, working for TV, theatre and other major media events as Set Designer, Production Designer, Art Director and Director. Glass came later on 2007, taking part of the Czech Brazilian Days in Nový Bor, the Heart of the Bohemian Glass, when I saw glass blowing for the first time. Love at first sight. In 2010 at the age of 41, I decided to make a two-week glass course that ended in a three years graduation in “Creation and production of artistic glass”. Now creating and producing glass in Slunečná, on North Bohemia, 100 meters from the forests.

What draws you to the material you work with?

Glass as a media, has infinite ways to be worked with, and I found myself on fusing and slumping. It’s a technique where I can slowly think [about] the composition but not always know how the glass will react. That’s the magic that I love. Waiting for the moment to stop the slumping and watching it flow.

What themes do you pursue in your work, and why have you chosen the processes that you use in your work?

Part of my work is geometrical, exploring forms and space. Breaking and reshaping. Recently, part of my work became a “Coming out” to myself. It’s telling very much about the things I would have loved to see, when I realized that I was uranist (love that historical noun for gay). You can call it “gay glass”.

What is your dream project?

I have been experimenting working with heat-proof cement as forms to my works and want to make a series of human size “glass blankets”, showing that under them, love is the same.

What is something about you that most people don’t know?

Being a scenographer, means that you have to paint, not being a painter, sculpt, not being a sculptor and I was not fulfilled with that. Then I met GLASS. Space, color, mass and volume in a very specific chemical structure. Something to be called mine. Just mine. It is my egoist world.

Why are you a member of GAS?

After a great experience at the project “Creating Glass Lives” in Frauenau and Bornholm, I realized that the glass family is bigger and exchange is very enriching. I am now getting in touch with people that I would not know. Making new bridges.

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