The Toxic series

A tale as old as time

Toxic is a series of hand-blown glass vessels created using traditional hot glass techniques and sandblasting processes. Each form carries imagery of the idealized 1950’s housewife — a figure historically constructed as domestic, pleasing, obedient, and emotionally contained. Disrupted by the presence of a skull embedded within or imposed upon her image, the work confronts the mythology surrounding femininity and blame.

The series plays on the word “toxic” — a label frequently assigned to women who express anger, sexuality, grief, or autonomy. Women are often characterized as sensual objects, devious, emotionally unstable, or dangerous, while the cultural forces that shape and provoke these responses remain invisible. In these works, the skull becomes both a symbol of mortality and a rupture in the illusion of glamour. It interrupts nostalgia and exposes the violence beneath idealization.

On the reverse side of each piece, images of murder weapons or intense emotions — a poison bottle, a lighter, a crying heart — suggest cause and consequence. These symbols complicate the narrative. Are they tools of destruction, survival, heartbreak, or self-defense? By placing them opposite the idealized female figure, the work creates a tension between surface and subtext, seduction and damage, accusation and accountability.

Glass itself becomes a conceptual partner in this dialogue. Beautiful yet fragile, seductive yet capable of cutting, it mirrors the way femininity is culturally constructed — admired, controlled, and easily shattered. Through traditional craft processes, Toxic reclaims the decorative object as a site of confrontation, challenging viewers to reconsider who is labeled dangerous, and who benefits from that narrative.