People say that glass is a symbol of fragility and vulnerability, but it is also one of strength, resilience, and rebirth. One of the artists that embodies this duality profoundly is Goldie Poblador, whose glass pieces may look dainty and ethereal at first glance but are powerful in meaning.
She pushes the boundaries of glass as more than just objects of beauty, with her works and exhibitions transforming it into an immersive, multisensory experience — attracting sight, scent, and hearing to create another world. Inspired by nature, folklore, and the body, Goldie Poblador’s glass sculptures invite interaction, to shift one’s perspectives, and to immerse oneself in the environment evoked by them.
In our latest artist spotlight, The Beat Asia chatted with Goldie Poblador as she talked about her beginnings in her medium, her meticulous creative process, and the inspirations behind her work.
What drew you to glass sculpture as your primary medium?
It started in 2009 for my undergraduate thesis in UP Diliman, and I wanted to work with scent because scent is our sense that’s mostly connected to the limbic system in the brain, and that’s the part that retrieves and stores memory. Sometimes it’s known as the 'feminine' side of the brain, as opposed to the logical, more 'masculine' side of the brain. Funny how they gender it, right? (laughs)
Our sense of smell is mostly linked to our memory. You smell something from your childhood, like candy, for example, and it brings you back to that memory. So I wanted to work with something that triggers that. In that same year, Typhoon Ondoy happened.
I then had the idea to make an ironic perfume that critiqued the building of a mall in the area I grew up in. So, I wanted my thesis to conjure something commercial but to have an underlying tone like, 'You probably shouldn't have dredged the river...' and to conjure my childhood memories.
For me to make my perfume bar, I started to experiment with scent, and I was like, 'Wait, I should make my own perfume bottles.' And that's how the door opened to glass.
What challenges do you face in working with glass, and how do you push the boundaries of this medium?
Where to begin? (laughs) It’s been hard, it is very challenging.
When I was starting out, I knew nothing about perfumery, and so a lot of the perfumes I made were [a mix of scents collected from nature, among others]. I had this perfume called 'L’Eau de Pasig,' from the Pasig River — the scent of squalor of the Pasig River.
Glass was also challenging; I first learned from a scientific glassblower named Ancieto de Castro, and he was the first access I had to glass blowing back in 2009. He was part of the American Scientific Glassblowers Association, and he encouraged me to go abroad and learn more because learning the technique was limited in Manila.
I showed the perfume bar at UP for my thesis, and luckily, someone saw it. A curator named Joyce To from the Singapore Art Museum and I got commissioned to make a bigger version, but this time telling the history of the Philippines through scent.
Slowly, I would get booked, gigs, and funds. And the challenges of that, I mean, it was a weird material to sell, right? Glass and scent; the Philippine market was not as responsive. Let’s say that, and they still aren’t! (laughs)
I would say funding is the biggest challenge, and to me, starting out and even to this day, it’s access — to glass blowing studios, materials, and equipment. Throughout these years since 2009, I’ve just been actively and consistently applying to all grants, residencies, scholarships, and workshops that I can get my hands on.
Once in a while, I’ll get something, sometimes I won’t, most often I don’t. My inbox is full of rejection letters, but it’s part of being an artist, especially working with such a strange medium, and I am very stubborn. And since I’ve been a stubborn person since 2009, I guess I’m happy in a way that I’ve pursued the material.
I wanted to see all these scent glass things come to life. It’s been over a decade, and I still feel like I have more to do and learn. So, it’s a dance between the desire to create and finding the opportunities that allow me to create.
Can you walk me through your creative process?
When I think back to the start of 'The Rise of Medusa,' this was in 2023, I was sculpting flowers for a few years before the project 'Fertility Flowers' happened, but I felt that 'Okay, I think I need a break from these flowers.' I had been sculpting flowers since 2015, and I wanted something different.
I was inspired by the oil spill in the Verde Island Passage in the Philippines, and I was also going through a dark time due to the amount of violence against Asian people in America. So, I gravitated to marine invertebrates. Research was my first step; I connected with the Biodiversity Management Bureau of the Philippines and marine biologists from USC, where I learned that the biodiversity in the region was a product of their resilience. That was inspiring to me, and I saw it as a metaphor for diving into your subconscious dark side, your Jungian shadow side.
Next came execution. I specialize in glass frameworking, and I draw my influence from the 19th-century Blaschka's. My Corning Museum of Glass residency was pivotal, where I had access to limitless materials and experts in the field, which allowed me to experiment freely for my new project.
This then turned into a multi-sensory experience. I worked with a curator (Erwin Romulo), sound artists (Arvin Nogueras, Ben Richter), and a perfumer (M Dougherty) to incorporate scent and sound into my project, after realizing 'What if there was the scent of the Verde Island Passage through time?' It was designated as a hope spot by marine biologists, and I wanted to show that through scent and sound.
It was a challenge — coordinating across time zones, creating countless sculpture versions — but it all paid off.
At the final stage, I had to fight for the performance to be included in the Art Fair Philippines 2025. People doubted it, but after two years of hard work and being stubborn, I wasn’t going to back down. In the end, everything came together—the glass, the scent, the sound, the performance. It proved that vision, collaboration, sheer stubbornness, and resilience bring ideas to life.
How do you ensure the harmony between the visual, olfactory, and digital aspects of your art?
That’s a great question. You don’t know until you install it.
Sometimes I have the chance to plan it out, and sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I get an emergency grant, and I rent a studio space for a week, and that’s all I test — scent, sound, glass, performance video — so it depends on access, but you know, you work with what you got.
Where do you draw inspiration for your works?
I’m kind of a nerd, I’m always curious about my environment.
My inspiration comes from research, history, and stories. For my project 'Fertility Flowers,' the peacock flowers and the Dama de Noche flowers were two flowers found around my childhood home, and I always questioned where they came from.
Years later, in 2020, I learned that peacock flowers were used as an abortive drug by the women of Suriname because they didn’t want their children to be enslaved. Suriname was a Dutch colony in the 15th century, and the person who discovered this was a female botanical artist whom I extremely admire, Maria Sibylla Merian.
The Dama de Noche, known as the 'Lady of the Night,' in Philippine mythology, is about a woman who could not bear children, who was punished and turned into the flower. I thought, 'Wow, this is the opposite of the women in Suriname.'
That’s how I got the title 'Fertility Flowers,' because these two stories are issues that are important to women in this day and age. People would tell me, 'Your themes are old, feminism is dead,' and yet here we are in 2025, witnessing the removal of women’s rights in different parts of the world.
How did you become involved in Art Fair Philippines?
In 2024, two pieces from 'The Rise of Medusa' were part of a group show with MONO8. It was in a tiny space, but I installed it with UV lights and scent. People stood in line for it, and I was shocked.
Trickie Lopa (one of the founders of Art Fair PH) reached out to me on the last day as I was walking up the stairs, and she said, “Goldie, ikaw next year ha (you'll be part of Art Fair Philippines next year, okay)? I want something interactive.”
So, I said, 'Game!' and that’s how I got invited — on the steps of The Link.
What does it mean to you to be a part of this event?
I’ve known Trickie, Dindin, and Lisa since I was a child. So, when they invited me, I felt like 'Oh my god, I have to do it.'
When I have an idea, I kind of just keep working on it, whether or not I have a solid invitation. By the time Trickie messaged me on WhatsApp in June, saying 'Hey Goldie, are you down? And do you want to sign with a gallery to do this?'
I said, 'Oh yes, I’m down, I’ve been working on it.' When I got her message, I was at Brooklyn Glass working on it. So, I always stay prepared because what propels me first is usually the idea.
Can you describe 'The Rise of Medusa'? What was the connection between the 2023 oil spills to the feminine icon, Medusa?
Believe it or not, Medusa is the name of a baby jellyfish.
On the other hand, I already worked on a project surrounding the Filipino goddess of the sea and death, Magwayen. When I did more research, I liked that idea. It’s so dark, and this was also the goddess of rebirth. I realized that this was an archetype in all mythology, existing in different regions in the world but with different names.
Magwayen and Medusa were essentially the same witch trope; the Medusa archetype.
There was something about 'The Rise of Medusa' that felt right; I liked the title because I imagined myself as this monstrous feminine rising from the darkness. But, the only way to rise is to conjure that archetype, right?
In 2023, after getting attacked in the subway, I felt mentally weak; I could barely walk on the street without running. So, I began to think about the parts of myself that could be tough. To me, it’s that archetype of the witch, the whore, and the monster.
And when I did more research into the monstrous feminine, I began to imagine her character as me. Like the oil spill that threatened the Verde Island Passage, I had to rise and transform my pain into resilience.
'The Rise of Medusa' was me being reborn.
Any upcoming projects, collaborations, or exhibitions that your audience can look forward to?
I was commissioned to do this show at a church in Times Square. I know that I want to be inspired by the façade of this church, and to work with the Church of St. Mary the Virgin. So, I started to do research on the vilified and virtuous biblical women and to tie that back to the monstrous feminine.
I don’t know what that is going to look like, but It’ll start production this year. I want the performance to be in the church, and the performance will be in October 2025.
Learn more about Goldie Poblador and her works by visiting her website and following her on Instagram.
