Introducing Natalie Dubrovska: Growing a Glass Garden
Today, we’re honoured to welcome Ukrainian glass artist and designer Natalie Dubrovska to Tajmi.
Now based in Barcelona, Natalie works between glass, sculpture, and spatial design. With a background in interior architecture and an MA from the Royal College of Art in London, her practice sits between art and design, guided by a deeply material-led approach. For Natalie, glass is not just a medium; it is an active collaborator.
“My whole life, my rebel soul was tied up in a system that wouldn’t allow me to just go with the flow,” she shares. “Everything in architecture is about control and precision. But when glass enters the room, there’s no way to stay precise. It becomes a dialogue, and glass always wins.”
Drawn to improvisation, she embraces glass for the freedom it offers, while accepting its demand for full presence.
Much of Natalie’s current work is shaped by displacement and personal memory. “Back in Ukraine, we have a tradition of gifting tulips on the 8th of March to the women we love. Last year, on the 8th of March, I made my very first glass flower. It didn’t really look like a tulip, it was a bit odd, not quite right, almost alien.”
That moment marked the realization that she could no longer bring tulips to her grandmother. “We are all living in different parts of the world because of the war. A very simple ritual suddenly became impossible.”
This is how Natalie began growing her own glass garden. The flowers are intentionally imperfect; fragile forms that hold memory, rupture, and loss. “They feel like small memorials,” she says, shaped by disruption and distance.
Her glassware comes from a similar place. It draws from blurred memories of her grandmother’s vitrine cabinet, where glass objects were kept for special occasions. “Of course, no one took them when leaving the war. So instead, I’m rebuilding my own personal reliquias.” This idea gave name to her glassware collection, objects that sit between use and remembrance.
Natalie also speaks openly about fragility and failure. “I love the way glass teaches me to accept fragility. Imagine working on a piece for three days, and then with one wrong move...it’s gone. Because of glass, I reconsidered the meaning of failure. I love when glass cracks because of my mistake. It means something real just happened.”
Now settled in Barcelona, Natalie reflects on a fluid sense of home. “In the last four years, I moved countries with all my things five times. My work is also about this shifting idea of home. I’m making fragile roots out of glass, literally representing the way I live and feel.”
Each of Natalie’s pieces carries memory, movement, and the delicate honesty of glass - imperfect, present, and deeply human.
We’re excited to share her work with you and invite you to explore her collection.
Nettika xx
Founder & Curator
