The popular nineteenth century idiom of the glass paperweight - its familiar dome shape enclosing an intricate pattern of floral or other motifs - illustrates the potential for the artist to exploit the transparency of glass in making clear-bodied forms that reveal smaller elements or motifs within. These enclosed motifs often appear to be suspended or 'frozen' inside the body of the work, recalling the prehistoric insect preserved within a bead of amber.

Such treatments range from the candid, cell-like enclosures of Ian Mowbray's Not at home - a work that emulates the paperweight tradition - to the regal palette and sumptuous layering of Brian Hirst's Guardian 1, and the fragments of primary colour sliding behind the red sheath of Jane Bruce's Red object #2.