Dominic Fondé is a professional glass artist who has been working with blown and engraved glass art for over ten years. He has many of his artworks in public and private collections in the United Kingdom and Europe. His public commissions notably include a series of engraved art glass windows at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens. In 2006 he relocated to Singapore and in early 2008 founded Dominic Fonde Glass Art. At this time he worked as a partner and founding member of Art Glass Solutions. He was commissioned by Versace to engrave perfume bottles at the launch of their new fragrance at Civic Plaza, Singapore in 2008. Dominic is the only professional glass engraver working in Singapore and has been featured on Media Corp TV programs “On The Beat” and “Knockout”. In December 2008 he was elected to Associate Fellowship of the Guild of Glass Engravers. In 2009 he took part in “Migrate” the 30th anniversay show of the Scottish Glass Society which toured the UK. His piece for the show titled “9 feathers” was auctioned to raise funds for the Scottish Glass Society’s future projects. In 2011 his partnership with Art Glass Solutions was brought to a close in order for him to concentrate on his personal projects such as “Birdsong”, a touring exhibition that visited Japan, Scotland and Singapore during 2010 and 2011 and his one man show “The Human Tide” a series of twelve linked short stories that explore the power of perfume which he wrote and performed in early 2011.
Dominic uses the technique of drill engraving to inscribe his own original short stories onto glass objects. Typically the objects are vessels, jugs, vases, goblets etc. The stories aim to explore the emotional weight that such items have in our lives. A glass can hold more than water and vase more than flowers. They hold thoughts feelings and memories too. His recent work has be focused on images of birds and feathers. He is particularly interested in the feather as a metaphor for a person, being blown at random by the wind to new experiences and events.
“When Dominic first started working with me in the late 90’s he had already established an interest in glass as a material but his secret passion was writing. Scrolling away his prolific stories while at the same time struggling to express himself through the material of glass. It wasn’t until the marriage of this writing and the material that he found his voice. The focus of that voice is narrative. We have both chosen very different ways of examining the principles of storytelling in relationship to our chosen material. We represent, perhaps the extremes; with Dominic dominating with words and I with image. The connection being that we both use the transparency of the material as the vehicle of expression” Steven Newell on Dominic Fondé
Dominic became fascinated with the technique of drill engraving while working in London for glass artist Steven Newell in the late 1990’s. Drill engraving offered him the opportunity to marry his two passions, glass and story telling. Initially his short stories were science fiction and fantasy based efforts but over time he began to explore the emotional weight that objects such as vases, wine glasses and paperweights have in peoples lives. 
These items might be fine craft objects or simply nick knacks picked up at a rummage sale, never-the-less they become of crucial emotional importance to people and their sudden loss can be a dramatic and devastating moment.
Glass exerts a fascination for Dominic due to his idea that we are currently living in the “glass age”. By this he means that glass is the defining technological material of the times, just as stone was in the stone age or iron in the iron age. Glass has played an indispensable role in shaping or world from its applications in medical science through to spectacle lenses and windows that keep out the weather and let light in. No material is so ubiquitous and yet so relied upon. Dominic regularly gives lectures runs workshops titled “the world without glass” in which he invites people to imagine a world where glass has never been discovered.
Tel+65 94813863
7 Claymore Road 14-03 Singapore 229538