Based in Adelaide, Tala Kaalim’s practice is material and process driven. Motivated by the diverse properties of glass itself and identifying glass-blowing as a kind of abstract story-telling, her artworks display different visual and textural qualities in a variety of objects and forms. Tala’s finished works often reveal the different stages of her experimental process.

Her style is texturally orientated, more specifically, the way textures evolve over time, like an object’s decay and inevitable breakdown. Or exposure to nature’s elements, such as how a metal patina oxidises on the surface of a material and changes its appearance.

Tala usually starts with an idea of a form or a textural concept. She then draws versions of how the piece can come to life and maps out the making process in her mind to see how possible the initial idea will be to make real. 

The concept is then taken to the hot shop (a glassmaker's workroom containing the furnace) where Tala creates various prototypes to see how glass responds to the idea. In typical artistic fashion, she sits with the tangible object for quite some time, refining it before bringing an exquisite finished piece out into the world.