MERY CRYSTAL RA
(MEELI KÕIVA)

MERY CRYSTAL RA (MEELI KÕIVA)

Mery Crystal Ra (Meeli Köiva) is a globally renowned, award-winning / multimedia- light-glass artist/ painter/and innovator. She was born in Estonia. Currently she resides in New York and Helsinki. She is considered a trailblazer and source of influence in the light art movement, reshaping the space and surface of structures. A pioneer in combining glass and light to create extraordinary works of art, she creates highly imaginative and novel pieces in Europe and in the US for private residences and public buildings. She has been an innovator and a visionary in the field of light and glass art for the past 35 years. She has created over 50 architectural projects worldwide.

Mery Crystal Ra is one of the few women to work in the international environment of architectural glass art, participating in conferences and cooperating with various architects and engineers. Her innovative interactive glass-light-video sculptures were created for the UNESCO International Year OF Light closing ceremony 2016, European Parliament main building exhibition in Brussels, Belgium 2006 and Glaston Corporation. She’s one of the winners of the 2013 and 2014 Light In the City European light artists competition. Innovative impression is achieved thanks to her vigorous use of innovative materials and technologies. Keeping up-to- date with the research results in the glass industry gives a fresh feel and new sensitivity to her sculptures. The artist’s masterful use of the interplay of graphics and color gives a result with a unique handwriting. The light feeling of Mery Crystal Ra’s works is achieved by long testing and experimenting.

“Architecture, engineering and glass industry are dominated by masculine rationality” says Meeli, who adds that it might be her mission to let her glass sculptures and glass paintings enrich the architectural world with feminine emotionality. „, Our environment needs something unique and innovative. Some visual signs. In the context of a City or a country, art is the medium that can communicate something unique and special. Technology without a meaning or a philosophy behind it is mere handicraft.”