Contemporary artists are breathing new life into the ancient art of stained glass, transforming a medium traditionally associated with religious architecture into cutting-edge artistic expressions that speak to modern audiences. Through innovative techniques, unconventional materials, and secular themes, these artists are creating immersive installations, mixed-media sculptures, and large-scale abstractions that cast new light on this timeless craft.
The revival represents a departure from stained glass's historical context while maintaining its spiritual essence. Marcel Proust once described stained glass as "a flaming and fantastic shower, a rainbow grotto, and dazzling and gilded carpet of forget-me-nots," capturing the medium's ability to captivate through the interplay of color and light. The art form traces back to the 12th century when French abbot Suger, known as the "father of stained glass," renovated Saint-Denis Abbey Church with enormous painted windows that became central features of Gothic architecture.
After flourishing during the Renaissance and experiencing a revival in the early 20th century through Louis Comfort Tiffany and Frank Lloyd Wright's innovations, stained glass is once again finding relevance. Today's artists are separating the craft from its religious origins, using it to connect viewers not to deities but to nature, community, and alternative mythologies. This transformation offers what many consider a visual language of "unmediated radiance and sensory immersion" in an era often lacking enchantment and mystery.
Philadelphia-based artist Judith Schaechter exemplifies this movement with her secular approach to the medium. "There's a psychic change that happens when someone beholds radiant colored glass," Schaechter explained. "We go totally crazy, as far as I can tell; it shuts off our intelligence." After becoming frustrated with painting's "oppressive, male-dominated history" during art school, she shifted to glass work and never looked back. Nearly 50 years later, she finds the material gives her "faith in the power of art," allowing her to illustrate humanity's place in the cosmos.
Her latest project, "Super/Natural" (2025), demonstrates this philosophy through an immersive stained-glass dome created during a residency at the Penn Center for Neuroaesthetics. Currently on display at San Francisco's Museum of Craft and Design through February 8, 2026, the eight-foot-tall secular temple features mesmerizing polychromatic patterns etched and painted onto glass. The work celebrates both the beauty and brutality of nature through a riot of flowers, insects, rodents, stars, and birds drawn from 17th and 18th-century natural history prints by women.
The growing interest in glass art reflects broader cultural shifts, according to David Judson, president of Los Angeles's Judson Studios, America's oldest family-run stained glass studio. "The gallery world and collector sensibilities are changing," Judson observed. "I think there's a real desire for the handmade, for materials that feel real and lasting." This longing for craftsmanship and meaningful resonance drives many artists leading the revival.
Interdisciplinary artist Raúl de Nieves demonstrates how contemporary artists are making stained glass more accessible while maintaining its transformative power. His kaleidoscopic windows and murals borrow motifs from Catholicism, Mexican folklore, and occult practices like tarot cards, envisioning an expansive and communal spirituality. The Mexican American artist substitutes traditional glass and lead with acetate and tape, making the medium more approachable while preserving its essence.
"The labor is no different than crafting real stained glass," de Nieves explained. "The steps are essentially the same: drawing, cutting, reconstructing. But this way, I don't need machinery; the material transformation is all by hand." His interest in stained glass began while creating a holiday window display from colored tissue paper at an antique shop where he worked. "I saw how this very simple material could create illusions that altered our perception of reality," he recalled.
De Nieves's current exhibition, "In Light of Innocence," at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn through December 14, features 50 faux acetate stained-glass panels in vibrant shades of fuchsia, cobalt, and carmine red. These works prove that paper and plastic can evoke transcendent experiences as powerfully as traditional glass, while the changing light throughout the day continuously transforms the artwork.
Sculptor Timo Fahler takes another approach by modernizing the medieval art form through incorporation of salvaged materials like window grates and chain-link fences. These familiar elements of domestic life are retrofitted with colorful glass pieces, creating sculptures that are simultaneously ornamental and utilitarian, sacred and profane. "Glass is this liquid medium," Fahler noted. "It energizes and enlivens other materials, even rusted wire bed springs abandoned on the side of the road."
For the American artist currently based in Amsterdam, stained glass serves as a storytelling medium that synthesizes various aspects of his identity and cultural heritage, drawing from sources ranging from Mesoamerican mythology to big tech corporations. In his upcoming exhibition at Sebastian Gladstone in New York, Fahler employs the Tiffany technique, wrapping individual glass pieces' edges with copper foil before soldering them together.
His works juxtapose American symbols with Mayan imagery, drawing parallels between the destabilization preceding ancient civilization's collapse and today's political turmoil. "Flag" (2025), composed of a box spring fitted with red, white, and blue glass discs, depicts an enormous American flag slumped against the wall. The equally imposing "AH MUZEN CAB" (2025) shows the Mayan god of bees upside down within a rusted chain-wire gate.
Georgian artist David Apakidze uses found materials like car doors and street signs to root his practice in Tbilisi while addressing personal and political themes. "As a queer artist in an Orthodox Christian country, I first felt very alienated," Apakidze explained. "But as I studied our history, I realized there was a lot that I could identify with and make my own." After encountering a meaningful stained glass window in a church, he sought out one of the few local artisans working with glass and began "queering the craft."
In a recent exhibition at project space KVOST in Berlin, Apakidze's two- and three-dimensional sculptures present vulnerable and resilient aspects of the human body. One untitled 2025 wall-based work depicts a woman with a sword through her neck and blood dropping into a chalice. Another consists of a metallic motorcycle helmet with shattered pink-and-blue glass mosaic in the visor. Through the painstaking process of cutting and grinding glass, the artist finds solace amid political instability.
New York artist Kristi Cavataro represents the medium's abstract possibilities, trading traditional figuration for large, tubular constructions. Her modular sculptures recall children's playground equipment, surrealistic machinery, and alien life-forms. Despite their futuristic appearance, Cavataro crafts them entirely by hand, carefully flexing and shaping reticular glass pieces before soldering with zinc, tin, and copper.
For her recent exhibition with Galerie Gisela Capitain in Cologne, Cavataro adopted a more organic approach with smaller works in pale pink, carmine red, and emerald featuring tapered appendages and curved lines that feel fluid and sensuous. In "Untitled" (2025), a cobalt wall-mounted sculpture shows three tubes radiating from a central ring, while another untitled 2025 work features two conjoined amber loops arcing off the wall. As light shimmers across their opaque and translucent surfaces, the forms appear to stir with life.
This contemporary stained glass revival demonstrates how ancient techniques can address modern concerns while maintaining their capacity for wonder and revelation. These artists are translating the medium's traditionally sacred sense into something distinctly human, reflecting an updated vision of artistic expression in 2025. Through their innovative approaches, they prove that stained glass continues to offer unique possibilities for creating transcendent experiences in contemporary art.
