Gloria Cortina’s artistic expressiveness is particularly evident in the special pieces she creates for her Collectible Design series. These pieces have functional qualities – as furniture, for example – but they are always originally conceived as unique forms of sculptural or allegorical art.

They are perhaps the most profoundly concentrated expressions of Gloria’s creativity. The way she combines shapes and materials is remarkable and, crucially, the materials and forms are never used solely for their aesthetic qualities. The colours, lines and surfaces always have symbolic or cultural resonances, and the pieces often radiate a subtle aura of mystery – art inspired by deeper continuums of time and culture.

We see and sense this in pieces such as the Quiet Hummingbird Sconces, articulated in quartz, bronze and obsidian. The sconces are angular and apparently abstract in outline, but they symbolise the bird that ancient Aztecs associated with immortality, desire, and the subconscious.

The monumental Origin table is composed of two semi-circular pieces of onyx, interrupted by a sand-cast bronze piece. The table has an almost geological quality – glowing stone through which a crack in time has appeared.

The Blackhawk Console, arguably Gloria’s most powerfully graphic work, is an arched table, deeply glossy with layers of cochinilla lacquer, beneath which hangs a bronze and obsidian curtain of stylised feathers – an homage to the significance of flying birds in pre-Colombian mythology.

The artful diversity of forms and meanings in three pieces characterise the conceptual originality of Gloria Cortina’s Collectible Designs.