Niall Shukla is a talented self-taught artist who specializes in cracking detailed portraits into laminated glass canvases by meticulously striking them with a hammer.

Hitting panels of glass with a hammer to create something beautiful sounds counterintuitive, but that’s exactly what makes Niall Shukla’s cracked glass art so fascinating. Using a variety of metal hammers and chisels, the London-based artist chips away at laminated glass panes, creating cracks that ultimately form clear and detailed pictures. It’s an art form that requires mountains of patience and nerves of steel, as one strike too powerful or in the wrong place can result in massive cracks that ruin the artwork, forcing the artist to start from scratch.

Read More »

Ethiopian-born artist Natnael Mekuria specializes in stunning celebrity portraits cracked into panes of glass using only a chisel and hammer.

22-year-old Natnael Mekuria discovered cracked glass art during the Covid-19 pandemic, but mastering the unusual art form took a lot of time and patience. In the beginning, he lacked the hand control necessary to keep the glass canvas from shattering, so he would spend hours chiseling at it only to have it break into pieces before finishing. But he didn’t give up, and today he is able to turn simple panes of laminated glass into beautiful works of art. He still spends hours on end painstakingly chiseling at the glass, but the end results are much different than when he first started.

Read More »