A Dutch designer's arrangement of cut flowers behind patterned glass, split and distorted to look digitally glitched.

Dutch Designer Places Cut Flowers Behind Glass to Make Them Look Digitally Glitched

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Written by Seth Sebastian

2026-11-10

Cut flowers seen through textured glass, their edges broken into offset strips.

The bouquet looks like it has been run through a digital glitch filter. Petals break into colored squares, and stems seem to dissolve mid-length. No software is involved. Dutch artist and designer Marius Boekhorst creates the effect with flowers behind patterned glass and a set of cut stems.

The method is simple. Boekhorst places the blooms behind patterned glass inside geometric structures. Each pane bends and scatters light, so the bloom behind it loses its outline and its edges blur into color.

Glass has a long history of bending light around botanical subjects, and a Czech studio shows another route. Lasvit’s glass herbarium of meadow textures captures plants in glass for a striking comparison.

Stems and blooms partly hidden behind a ridged glass panel, creating a fragmented look.

Flowers behind patterned glass in the Violet series

The Violet series shows how far that idea can go. The works Violet, Violet Frosted and Violet Pixel each control how much of the flower a viewer can read. Each piece reveals a different balance of glass-framed blooms, and the results echo Impressionist brushwork and the dot technique of Pointillism.

The image is never fixed. Walk around one of these objects and a bouquet can resolve into a recognizable arrangement. Step to the side and the same flowers may read as an abstract field of color. The glass acts as the surface, the lens and the source of the picture all at once.

Close view of cut flower petals distorted by rippled glass in a studio setting.

Who makes the work

Boekhorst was born in the Netherlands in 1998. The designer works across art, design and fashion, and often finds new uses for everyday materials in glass flower art. Floral arrangements, a common decorative object, become the raw material for these sculptural flowers.

Boekhorst’s Dutch roots connect him to a wider wave of digitally minded makers from the Netherlands. Jesperish’s dreamlike digital worlds offer a screen-based counterpart worth a look.

The work has been shown internationally. It appeared at Milan Design Week and Collectible New York. In 2026, Boekhorst held a solo exhibition at Emanuele Catellani Contemporary in Italy.

The appeal of this approach lies in restraint. The flowers themselves stay the same. Only the glass and the viewer’s position change, and that shift turns a familiar bouquet into something that looks like a painting in motion.

Bouquet placed behind vertical patterned glass, with shapes repeated in narrow slices.
Cut blooms arranged against a plain backdrop, viewed through a striped glass panel.
Flower heads split into horizontal bands by a grooved glass sheet.
Wide shot of cut flowers standing behind a sheet of frosted patterned glass.
Flowers in a vase positioned behind glass, with their outlines visibly shifted and doubled.
Designer's installation of cut flowers arranged in front of a patterned glass wall.
Pale flowers blurred and broken into blocks by textured glass in soft light.
Hand-placed flower stems set against a glass panel with a pixelated pattern.
Cut flowers fragmented into grid-like sections by a square-patterned glass surface.
Overhead view of flowers resting on a surface covered by ribbed glass.
Flowers behind glass with a diagonal pattern, giving them a sliced appearance.
Close-up of a flower head distorted into stripes by patterned glass in front of it.
Several cut flowers grouped behind a translucent sheet with a raised texture.
Floral arrangement viewed through glass, with its colors split into vertical columns.
Flowers staged in front of a neutral wall, partly obscured by patterned glass.
Stems and petals displaced and repeated by the uneven surface of a glass pane.
Cut flowers photographed through glass, their shapes stretched into jagged strips.
Bright blooms behind a patterned glass screen, with edges appearing shifted sideways.
Side view of a flower arrangement set behind a fluted glass panel.
Flowers arranged on a table, viewed through a patterned glass sheet held upright.
Detail of flower petals broken into fine lines by textured glass in the foreground.
Cut flowers in a glass-fronted display, their forms repeated and fractured by the pattern.
Final view of flowers behind patterned glass, showing the glitched visual effect.
A Dutch designer's arrangement of cut flowers behind patterned glass, split and distorted to look digitally glitched.

H/T designyoutrust.com

Frequently asked questions

How does Marius Boekhorst create the glitched look in his flowers?

Boekhorst places cut flowers behind patterned glass inside geometric structures, and no software is involved. Each glass pane bends and scatters light, so the bloom behind it loses its outline and its edges blur into color.

Why does the view of a Violet series piece change as you move?

The image is never fixed, so a bouquet can resolve into a recognizable arrangement when you walk around it. Stepping to the side can make the same flowers read as an abstract field of color. The glass acts as the surface, the lens, and the source of the picture all at once.

Where has Marius Boekhorst’s work been shown?

His work has been shown internationally, including at Milan Design Week and Collectible New York. In 2026, he held a solo exhibition at Emanuele Catellani Contemporary in Italy.

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