Japanese glass artist Nao Saito turns rigid borosilicate glass into filigree forms that look woven, netted, and almost soft, and you can watch the process unfold on her Instagram, where recent posts highlight intricate “stringer work” built from stretched glass sticks welded into latticed bodies, flowers, and large human figures that read like hand-drawn lines in space. Saito calls the method “stringer work,” a practice that treats glass like thread: she stretches thin borosilicate rods, then fuses them point by point into airy meshes that hold together with surprising strength and precision, even as they appear as fragile as soap suds. You see the precision in close-up reels: joints fuse cleanly, curves repeat with calm rhythm, and the final forms catch light the way nets catch wind, which explains why her videos trigger both awe and trypophobia comments in equal measure.
You meet Nao Saito work first as process. She heats, draws, and sets the lines, letting transparency become structure rather than surface, and that shift changes how you read glass: not as a sealed skin, but as a network that breathes with the room and the viewer’s movement. She uses borosilicate for clarity and durability and notes that the pieces can be reheated and repaired, which gives the sculptures a practical resilience that contradicts their gossamer look and supports long, iterative builds on large works over months and years. When Nao Saito scales up to human figures, the illusion deepens: the mesh suggests bone and fascia without pretending to be either, and the “printed” look dissolves as soon as you watch her lay each strand by hand.
You notice range. On one end, small decor—flowers, snowflakes, butterflies—shows how the lattice language adapts to ornament without losing integrity; on the other, full-body sculptures anchor the practice in proportion, stance, and weight, despite the open, porous form. Coverage from art platforms and curator accounts has amplified those studio clips, with captions pointing to the difficulty of manipulating delicate components into stable sculpture—a challenge you can track in reels that isolate steps in the build and reveal why minor misalignments matter at scale. The attention isn’t hype; it’s the visible rigor of method, filmed plainly enough that you can count intervals between nodes and see how repetition produces strength.
You also get context through language. “Taking your breath away” is how Saito frames the aim of the work, and the phrasing fits the optical behavior of the mesh: each cell bends light, multiplies reflections, and sets up a shimmer that shifts with distance, so you feel the pieces before you name them—net, skin, lace, frost. That sensation lands online because the camera loves edges and joints; macro shots reward scrutiny, while mid-shots preserve the silhouette, and viewers recognize the hand in both, which keeps clips replayable and shareable across accounts devoted to process art.
If you follow glass, you already map Nao Saito alongside artists who push technique into metaphor, and you weigh this lattice approach against kiln-cast mass or hot-sculpted gesture. Here, the metaphor is structural: many small elements become a body by repetition and care, an idea she states plainly in coverage that ties the work to nature’s forms and to the cumulative power of tiny parts acting together. That reading aligns with the lived reality of her builds and explains why viewers fixate on the fear of dropping them; the pieces look like bubbles, yet they endure heat, handling, and assembly because the mesh distributes stress intelligently.
You can trace current activity on her Instagram, where follower counts, post volume, and recent exhibition notes appear in Japanese and English, including a line that marks 2025 displays as “the last” for a specific body of work and mentions collaboration with glass artist Mutsumi Kashida, signaling milestones and transitions in the studio’s schedule. Those updates matter if you plan to see the work in person, and they confirm what the videos already show: Saito treats time as a material, returning to projects across seasons until the mesh reads as inevitable rather than improvised.
You can watch, learn, and decide. The reels expose enough of the method to teach respect without giving up the craft’s muscle memory, and the finished pieces stand on their own without captions, which is why the comment sections swing from “masterpiece” to visceral discomfort—both honest reactions to a language of glass that insists on presence and patience in an attention economy. If you value seeing process match result, follow the account, track exhibition announcements, and take the chance to view the large figures in person; the lattice holds light in ways a screen flattens, and the scale recalibrates your sense of how far a thin line of glass can go.
Via: Mymodernmet
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE TO READ
- Through the Looking Glass: Kaleb Weber’s Handmade Kaleidoscopes Challenge Mass Production
- Caroline Dewison Builds Tiny Worlds with Big Imagination
Every Artist Has a Story. What’s Yours?
Whether you’re just getting started or have been creating for years, your story matters. At Art Tellers, we share real voices from real artists—what drives you, what you’ve learned, and why you keep going.
This is a space for honesty, inspiration, and connection. No filters. No hype. Just people who love to make things and aren’t afraid to say why.
Want to share yours? Send it to info@arttellers.com. We’re listening.
