Pac- Man Ghosts
4 works
Dylan Martinez Water Bag : F19 For Sale
Dylan Martinez
Water Bag : F19
Glass Sculptures - Hot Sculpted, Sandblasted, Acid Etched
14 x 6.25 x 4.5”
About this work
Dylan Martinez has established himself as one of the foremost contemporary glass artists working in the United States, earning recognition for his technically demanding approach to hot-sculpted glass and his ability to transform a rigid medium into forms that suggest fluidity, tension, and the ephemeral nature of contained space. His work occupies a distinctive position at the intersection of craft tradition and fine art conceptualism, attracting collectors who appreciate both material virtuosity and intellectual rigor. Water Bag : F19 exemplifies Martinez's ongoing exploration of the water bag motif, a body of work that interrogates our perception of everyday objects while demonstrating extraordinary command of glassworking techniques. The piece measures 14 x 6.25 x 4.5 inches and employs a layered process of hot sculpting, sandblasting, and acid etching to achieve its distinctive surface quality. This combination of methods creates a visual tension between transparency and opacity, between the apparent weightlessness of water and the substantial presence of glass. The F19 designation indicates this work's place within a carefully documented series, each iteration presenting subtle variations that reward sustained attention and comparative study. What distinguishes Martinez's water bags from mere technical exercises is their capacity to arrest familiar forms in permanent suspension, inviting viewers to reconsider the physics of containment and the aesthetics of utility. The sandblasted and acid-etched surfaces diffuse light in ways that emphasize volume while obscuring interior space, producing an object that feels simultaneously solid and impossibly delicate. Guy Hepner welcomes inquiries regarding the acquisition of this work.
Price on Application
Edition & Provenance
- Medium
- Glass Sculptures - Hot Sculpted, Sandblasted, Acid Etched
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More series by Dylan Martinez
About the H20/sio2 Water Bags Series
Dylan Martinez makes glass sculptures of plastic bags filled with water. The bags are tied at the top, slightly misshapen from the weight of the water inside, and completely convincing. They are made entirely from hot-sculpted, sandblasted, and acid-etched glass, and they look nothing like it.
The work is built around a simple premise: glass and water share enough visual properties that, handled correctly, one can pass for the other. Martinez has spent years refining exactly how to do that. The surfaces on these pieces replicate the transparency of plastic, the stillness of water, and the way light moves through both. The series also includes Bubble Fish 15, a water bag with a skeleton fish suspended inside it. It extends the concept of the water bag beyond the container itself and introduces something that was once living into the illusion. It is among the more unusual works in his catalog.
About Dylan Martinez
Dylan Martinez is a contemporary glass artist based Washington State, USA. He holds a Master of Fine Arts in Glass from Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, and a Bachelor of Science from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls, where he studied broad field science with a minor in outdoor education. His path to glass began as a college elective that quickly became a lifelong pursuit.
Martinez works entirely in hot glass, hand-sculpting each piece without molds or casting. His practice centers on perception and illusion, drawing on the technique of Trompe L'oeil to create works that challenge what the eye believes to be true. He is best known for his water bag sculptures, objects that are indistinguishable from plastic bags filled with water, made entirely from molten glass shaped between 650 and 1150 degrees. The work is animated by his own experience of red-green colorblindness, which has given him a lifelong interest in how perception shapes reality.
He has trained with master glassmakers across the United States and completed a residency with Venetian glass masters in Murano, Italy. His most recent series introduces color for the first time in years, with sculptural works referencing water balloons and Pac-Man imagery that signal a move toward pop art territory.
Martinez's work is held in the Imagine Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida and the Kelime Müzesi in Ankara, Turkey, among other public and private collections. He has exhibited across the US, Italy, France, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Taiwan, and has been featured in Interior Design Magazine, American Craft Magazine, Elle Decoration, Aesthetica, and Colossal.