Layla Walter

Layla Walter is a New Zealand glass artist and maker who has gained significant recognition for her distinctive and individual works in cast glass. Walter graduated with a BA in Applied Arts in 1998 and since her graduation, has worked concurrently in her own practice and as an assistant to some predominant glass artists, both here in NZ and overseas. She has been invited to teach, demonstrate and talk about glass casting and New Zealand glass in NZ, Australia, America, Canada and Germany.

Her work is held in distinguished private collections (Sir Elton John, Sir Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, Peter Gordon at The Sugar Club); and in significant public institutions here in New Zealand (Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, and Auckland Museum), and overseas, where her work has been selected to represent New Zealand in museums, galleries and cultural embassies around the world; in particular the collection held by NZ Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade who have placed Walter’s work in Egypt, Iran, France, and USA. 

Her glass has been selected on six separate occasions for the Corning Museum of Glass New Glass Review where thousands apply for inclusion in an annual list of only 100 artists internationally, who are at the leading edge of current and relevant glass practice today.

Most recently she was included as one of only two object makers in Richard Wolfe’s curated exhibition ‘Our People – Our Land’ alongside a wealth of premiere NZ artists Walter continues a tradition of cast glass, working with techniques which are highly skilled and complex, often using very personal representations of weaving or native flora and fauna carved in bas-relief.

There has been much critical acclaim for her detailed work. Of her glass casting, Australian critique Noris Ioannou wrote “Layla Walter’s Magnolia Vase is a tour-de-force of the latter technique”.