Secret Languages

Every profession has its own language—specialised terms, acronyms, shorthand expressions—that enhance communication within the group but often exclude those outside it. These "secret languages" make meaning more precise for insiders while creating distance for anyone unfamiliar with the code. Without translation, full participation is impossible. This series, Secret Languages, reflects on that tension between clarity and exclusion. Each piece is made by drawing molten glass—fresh from the furnace—onto watercolour paper using a steel rod. The glass scorches the surface, leaving behind calligraphic, smoke-like marks. The result evokes both language and landscape: traces of heat, movement, and skill, frozen into paper. For me, these drawings are a meditation on communication—on what is shared, what is withheld, and who gets to understand. Glassmakers often recognise the gesture immediately: the weight, the speed, the heat required. But to others, the mark remains abstract, even mysterious. It becomes a symbol of how meaning lives between people—and how easily it can be lost, or locked away, without context.