Through the lens of contemporary jewellery three artists with a shared interest in designing and making in metal, explore a common theme of intimacy through the tangible form of wearable and sculptural pieces.
Exhibition Statement:
Through the lens of contemporary jewellery three artists with a shared interest in designing and making in metal, explore a common theme of intimacy through the tangible form of wearable and sculptural pieces.
To some, intimacy is a feeling of being seen and heard, of being fully known, and then being loved for all that. Intimacy can transform us and may be what we search for, often, our whole lives.
To others, intimacy is a hue, a colour, the deep intense blue/black that greets and farewells the night sky. And for others, intimacy is a place in which we share our vulnerabilities and pain, a safe place devoid of judgement. Intimacy is not bound by stereotype, time or place - it can be both a shared place and an individual response.
Intimacy within spaces: narrowly enclosed to create the sense of closeness and connection.
The intimacy of objects: the sensation of touch/textures, being held, supported and attached.
This exhibition serves to challenge the perception of intimacy in our modern world - emotional, physical, mental or spiritual.
We invite you to reflect on your own understanding and experiences and consider the question “What does intimacy mean to you?”
Artist Statement:
Play? My interest is piqued. Some things are implied – safety, connection and movement – the joy of the unknown. Play, bump, shift, something new, something light, happy in its unplanned, unpredicted, unpredictable way. What might occur within me in these spaces of play that I inhabit?
Touch here, brush there. Soles in sand, feet brushing the salty moving water’s edge, sea breeze and the warmth of the sun on my face on my arms – the touch goes through me, lights me gently, takes hold. I am in the moment, whole with wherever I am right then.
The touch of entwining little fingers – sister to sister. A place of knowing all that we are.
The pure energy of a hound, entering a beautiful built space – it is the moment before touch. What atoms and air do just before contact. The anticipation. The knowing that something good is happening.
Fleeting, light, an intermediary space and energy, sometimes human and sometimes not. Strong and clear yet barely perceptible. Changing over time with human connection. Alone, it is the same feeling I come back to – in the moment, a place to be, to play with thoughts, to really see, to be absorbed, to be light.
Intimacy. With another. With me in a space that brings joy and wholeness. Maybe both.
Artist Bio:
Sue’s practice explores how ideas translate through design, the material palette and the tactile nature of turning these ideas into physical form. These connections that are made across pieces and across different materials in each stage of making contribute to meaning within her work.
Connections are made on so many levels and in so many ways – whether taking a design to a physical object, building pathways through study or within known networks, or through the many fleeting, seemingly disparate exchanges where something sticks and demands to be considered.
Each project offers the chance to explore new connections and create something tangible if not also fleeting.
Preview more from Sue Beardman @sube.form
Artist Statement :
An exploration of the intimacy of the spaces in-between. A sense of closeness, with or without a connection.
Flat rectangular sheets of metal scored and folded into a series of bold three-dimensional forms, with geometric rigour and constrained proportions.
The intimate gesture of peeling away to embrace a precious object, creating a sense of fluidity and movement. The act of being held or suspended in space.
Artist Bio:
With qualifications in architecture and a twenty-five-year career in design, Olivia came to jewellery to satisfy an urge to create directly by hand. Her transition from buildings to objects was a natural progression, both disciplines having regard for the principles of volume, structure and materiality.
Harnessing her skills in model-making, she first creates her designs in cardboard or balsa to explore ideas and test the making process prior to committing to metal. Olivia’s work is a form of ‘intimate architecture’, where large-scale ideas are constructed in detailed miniature. Her innate design sensibility and understanding of composition and proportion converge to give her work a focus on geometry, space and clarity of form.
Preview more from Olivia Zanardo @olivia_zanardo
Artist Statement:
Smooth/rough. Fluid/hard. Salty/sweet. Anticipation/relief.
My work is driven by a love and curiosity for the sea and the intimate ways we are connected to it.
A source of life, a place of solace, of creation and destruction. Its energy and power shapes and shatters, fuels and forms. Vast and amorphous, endlessly changing yet reliably soothing, its unbounded pull and gentle caress are strangely satiating.
An elixir and mixer, clarifying and captivating. The merciless force of its waves dumping our bodies, or a cool, sensual drip down our skin, draws us to its endless depths.
The biomorphic forms in my collection are created through multiple experiments using sterling silver and gold to create individual states of being and when worn an intimate connection to both self and the sea.
Artist Bio:
An interest in Jewellery and adornment piqued while studying on exchange at Central St Martins School of Art and Design in London, and during her early career as an Art Director at Vogue Australia. As Co-Founder and Creative Director of a creative agency and design studio for 21 years, Zoë holds design and artistic expression as core to her being.
Recently, Zoë has been exploring new territories in contemporary jewellery design, inspired by Modernist forms, Surrealist metaphors, Neuroscience and Punk. Her practice is focused on making modern, conceptual pieces in precious metals for conversation and contemplation.
Zoë’s subject matter is symbolic involving biomorphic forms, that play with the human experience. Experimenting with contrasting textures and feelings, her work expresses a fascination with both the fluidity and rigidity of metals, the intimacy of the design process and how these dualities relate to the human psyche. The process of transmutation is both literal and metaphysical.
Preview more fro Zoë Pollitt @buro_zoe
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