Contemporary Jewellery
Exhibition
13th November - 31st December 2015
& Collective Art Gallery
t -01786 359864 e -info@andcollective.co.uk w - andcollective.co.uk 28 Henderson Street, Bridge of Allan, FK9 4HR
Contemporary Jewellery Exhibition 13th November - 31st December 2015 Our yearly event exhibiting a fantastic selection of contemporary designer jewellers. In celebration of the best of gold and silver smithing talent, throughout the UK with a wealth of creativity and craftsmanship.
Alison Phillips Alma Sophia Beth Legg Cara Tonkin Cristina Zani Dot Sim Elizabeth Campbell Emily Kidson Gilly Langton Hannah Livingston Kathryn Hinton Lindsey Mann Louise Walker Lucie Hunter Misun Won Ruth Laird Sally Grant Shimara Carlow Sophie Stamp Stephanie Ray Tracy Wilson
Alison Phillips BA (Hons) Jewellery & Silversmithing, Edinburgh College of Art. Alison set up her workshop after Graduating from Edinburgh College of Art in 2005, designing and creating work for Galleries and Exhibitions throughout the UK, from her studio in Dunblane. Inspired by botanical forms, Alison ďŹ rst records her ideas through sketches and drawings, before translating her designs into silver, forming feminine and delicate pieces.
Alma Sophia 2013 Graduated from the University for the Creative Arts, Rochester, UK with a First Class BA (Hons) in Silversmithing, Goldsmithing and Jewellery Alma Sophia Grønli Geller is a Norwegian jeweller based in London. Through exploration and experimentation of shape and form, Alma Sophia creates pieces that are inviting to touch, handle and wear. Using square tube to develop the forms, Alma allows the pieces to have volume and convey a sculptural feel whilst remaining lightweight and comfortable to wear.
Beth Legg Beth Legg has been making jewellery professionally since 2003 after graduating with a first class honours from Edinburgh College of Art. The remote environment she comes from in the far north coast of Scotland has strongly influenced both the work she produces and the materials she uses. She has always been fascinated by the hinterlands and quiet edges of places – a bleak remoteness which can be both beautiful and melancholic. She surrounds herself with collected objects that inspire experimentation and have a powerful relationship with the environment she has taken them from. Rather than contriving designs beforehand, her practice is process-driven and material-led: “I enjoy the labour of traditional hand tool methods – forming a dialogue with materials through the exploration of their innate qualities and discovering their inherent possibilities. I find this process of designing through making very satisfying. My work can be seen as a moving dialogue – each piece an exploration of composing elements encompassing themes of landscape and memory, ultimately reflecting the often bleak and fragile nature of the environment I come from.”
Cara Tonkin Cara Tonkin designs beautiful, elegant and bold jewellery for stylish and strong-minded women. Her work marries classic and contemporary design to create unique, timeless pieces. It is jewellery that comes to life when worn, intricate, playful and tactile yet expressing glamour and elegance. The daughter of two artists, Cara grew up surrounded by creativity both at home and in the inspiring city of Brighton. After training at Central St Martins and achieving a First Class Honours degree in jewellery design, she returned to Brighton to establish her studio where every piece in her collections is made. Cara is a lover of the Art Nouveau and Art Deco movements and is a believer in the philosophy of Art Nouveau: that art should be a way of life. The stylized and symbolic organic forms of Art Nouveau and the streamlined, sculptural and decadent aspects of Art Deco provide endless inspiration.
Cristina Zani Inspired by Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, Cristina’s work is a reflection on the urban environment, its geometries and unique stories. The collection My Seoul is influenced by the contrast between antique and contemporary architecture of South Korea and reflects her personal experience of its cities. Cristina approaches the creation of jewellery in the same way she would compose a story and, like Marco Polo of Invisible Cities, borrowing elements from the city’s landscape to visually describe it and subtly suggest it to the viewer. The choice and juxtaposition of materials, shapes and colours echoes its sombre modern buildings intertwined with bright ancient wooden temples and vibrantly painted palaces. Like those buildings, Cristina’s pieces show the vulnerability of materials when exposed to time and elements; the layers and colours that slowly transform with the passing of years. Simple in form, but rich in stories and complexities.
Dot Sim Dot Sim’s designs are inspired by her rural Scottish environment – from changing landscapes, windswept beaches, and stormy seas, to the minutiae found in rock pools and the garden. She likes to “draw” with metal to capture movement and quality of line. The work is handmade using traditional gold and silversmithing techniques. She chooses to use precious metals - materials that stand the test of time, as she is interested in the role of jewellery as heirlooms that are handed down, providing intimate memories for future generations.
Elizabeth Campbell Graduate of Edinburgh College of Art BA(HONS) Jewellery & Silversmithing 2013 Elizabeth Jane Campbell is inspired by concepts of balance and exploring the relationship between shape, material and colour. The importance of balance, and the impact of a lack of balance, are translated through her jewellery using ceramic, metal and enamel. Elizabeth’s work is passionately focused on enamelling and she has developed a very personal and unique style, with her innovative approach to combining alternative materials with vitreous enamel. Elizabeth hand carves ceramic to achieve sculptural 3D forms, before applying vitreous enamel in a method similar to traditional enamelling on metal. She developed this unique process to enable her to create large scale enamelled jewellery that is lightweight and very wearable, as well as beautifully individual.
Emily Kidson Emily enjoys the making process so every piece is made by hand in her South London studio. She chemically bond the laminate sheet to wood, leave this to dry overnight and then hand cut it using a jewellers piercing saw, before sanding and waxing it for a beautifully smooth ďŹ nish. She works with silver using traditional jewellery and silversmithing techniques from riveting and fabrication through to granulation and burnishing. She often chooses to oxidise silver which gives it a lovely matt dark grey ďŹ nish which works beautifully next to the colourful laminate. Inspired by repetition and small details (from spots on the pavement to stripy steps at a railway station), Emily uses her sketchbook to draw designs, shapes and compositions. These then develop further as she works intuitively with the materials.
Gilly Langton Gilly Langton is a contemporary jewellery designer; she runs her business from the remote Highland village of Plockton on the West Coast of Scotland. Since starting her business in 1997, Gilly has been creating her bold sterling silver and elastic jewellery -selling and exhibiting in galleries, museums and fairs all over the world. Taking a romantic view of the sea and the life that surrounds and works it. Gilly explores its colour, material and form. Absorbing herself in iconic references to seafaring folk, she exaggerates the nautical traditions, combining hard and soft materials to emphasise the strength and struggle of a way of life. Using the harshness of the cold metal against the warmth of the hand dyed exible elastic. The changing colour palette of the Highlands echoes her view of the heather blanket hills and continual shift in light reected in the sea and lochs. Gilly challenge’s the properties of control and resilience with minimal aesthetics, creating dramatic pieces of beauty, strength and texture.
Hannah Livingston Letters to Jinny Letters to Jinny (formerly known as ‘Hannah Livingston Jewellery’) is a British jewellery brand, created and run by Hannah Livingston. Hannah lives and works in amongst the cobbled lovelieness of historic Edinburgh. Hannah is inspired by antiques, miniatures and above all, her love of history and the secrets lost in the passing of time. Each of her pieces have been handmade, cast, and ďŹ nished in Britain. Each item also bears the iconic castle of the Edinburgh hallmark.
Kathryn Hinton As a jeweller and silversmith Kathryn Hinton has spent time learning the traditional skills involved in working with silver and other materials. Her work focuses on merging these traditional silversmithing ideas with digital technology. She continues to develop design ideas and learn about new technologies which she combines to design and make her faceted silverware and jewellery. Kathryn’s work is process driven and as a way of merging these traditional silversmithing ideas with digital technology she developed a user interface in the form of a hammer that works alongside computer aided design (CAD) software. The digital tool mimics the physical actions of silversmithing, in particular the hammering process used in forming sheet metal. The faceted silverware and jewellery is realised using processes such as Computer Numerical Control (CNC) milling and press forming, rapid prototyping and lost wax casting process.
Lindsey Mann Drawing inspiration from themes of collecting memories Lindsey creates playful jewellery which might explore a eeting moment, a chance encounter or a material souvenir charged with meaning. Referencing shape, form, colour and pattern to realise each piece of jewellery hoping to create something which has both familiar and yet foreign associations, perhaps triggering a vague memory for the viewer and hopefully raising a smile! Working from her studio in the depths of rural Wiltshire, Lindsey constructs jewellery using hand-printed anodised aluminium, precious and non-precious metals and a host of found and formed materials. Using a range of low-tech hand processes to create her work including screen and block printing onto anodised aluminium and traditional metalwork techniques.
Louise Walker Louise Walker is one of the UK’s finest emerging contemporary silversmith jewellers. A multi award winning designer, Louise’s innovative work has received much recognition both nationally & worldwide. Pushing the boundaries of design & functionality, she executes beautiful collections with highly skill craftsmanship. Louise is most renowned for her meticulously handcrafted silverware designs. She employs the exceptionally difficult technical expertise of soldering silver & stainless steel together. This rare & complex technique offers a true exclusivity to Louise’s designs. Her contemporary aesthetic is minimal & pure, making a stunning array of products for both the body & home.
Lucie Hunter Lucie graduated in Jewellery and Metal Design from Duncan of Jordanstone in 2013. After Graduating she was accepted into the VanillaInk, a programme that nurtures and develops jewellers in their creative and business practices, providing them with the tools to set up as a trading business. Lucie is an Up and Coming Scottish jeweller that explores the relationship people have with their surroundings, speciďŹ cally the Scottish landscape. We have an innate afďŹ nity with the land we live on and have always taken pieces of it as mementos and wearing them as talismans. The shoreline of Iona and the basalt columns of majestic Isle of Staffa provide the inspiration for her current designs. The hexagonal columns are formed when lava cools and contracts into prismatic shapes and in turn shaped again by the wild, unrelenting Sea. The intricate designs refer directly to this natural process, using specially texturised precious metals and gemstones to create wearable treasures. The majestic Isle of Staffa’s hexagonal lava formations and the natural texturizing process it undergoes inspire this jewellery collection.
Misun Won Misun Won’s jewellery is often associated with the delicacy of highly refined handcraft skill in East. Her extensive experience of living and working in both Britain and Korea has given her the broader cultural outlook she sought when moving away from home. It has enabled her to position herself in what she calls “neutral territory” and to examine both cultures with “fresh eyes”. The influences of both countries can be seen in her work: a major inspiration is Korean patchwork, but this highly traditional form is interpreted through Western fractal geometry. After graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in 2008 with a master degree, Misun has worked at ECA as an artist in residency and a visiting lecturer. She recently won a finalist in professional category in contemporary jewellery awards Enjoia’t, FAD, Barcelona 2011 and a gold award for Fashion Production Jewellery in Goldsmiths’ Craftsmanship & Design Award in 2008. She has been exhibiting her jewellery in UK, Europe, and USA. Now she is working from her studio in Edinburgh.
Ruth Laird Ruth Laird is an art jewellery designer/maker, based in Glasgow. Since graduating from the Glasgow School of Art in 2011, she has completed an Artist in Residency at Birmingham School of Jewellery, and exhibited work at a range of international events, such as SIERAAD Amsterdam and JOYA Barcelona. Primarily inspired by the relationship between maths and visual art, and influenced by the way street art contrasts with surrounding architectural structures, Ruth’s work is a combination of precision and chaotic composition. Working mainly in silver, she uses scoring and folding techniques to create angular, assymetric shapes and wire structures, which she then assembles in various arrangements. Ruth often incorporate a moving feature such as a sliding element or hinged panel and embellish with layers of spray painted colour or experiment with heat-treatment and oxidisation to create interesting surface finishes. The result is unique, geometric jewellery which invites interaction.
Sally Grant Sally’s love of beautiful design and craftsmanship has informed her work from the very beginning. She studied 3 Dimensional Design at Grays School of Art in Aberdeen and has gone on to work in a number of creative environments including marketing for a design consultancy, gallery assistant and florist while establishing her jewellery business. The most inspiring career move was to undertake a two year apprenticeship with the talented Tony Thomson in Oxford where she learned all aspects of jewellery making in precious metals, gold, silver and platinum and was introduced to the world of gemstones. Tony’s workshop was filled with a lifelong collection of unusual fossils and stones gathered from all over the world. This inspiration still informs her work today.
Shimara Carlow Shimara Carlow was born in a remote coastal area in West Cork, Southern Ireland in 1979. After completing a degree in Silversmithing and Jewellery in 2001, and went on to a 2 year residency at Bishopsland Workshops in South Oxfordshire In 2004 Shimara moved to London where she set up her own business and workshop, and in 2008 she re located to Melbourne Australia, where she now has a studio in the beautiful grounds of the Abbotsford Convent. Shimara’s jewellery has been inspired by natural forms, primarily seed pods. She uses silver, 18ct gold, silk paper and gum nuts to create her tactile jewellery. Collections include Gum Nut, neckpieces, rings and earrings constructed from both silver and real gum nuts and Honesty, whitened and reticulated silver ovals, which resemble honesty leaves, constructed in to long articulated neckpieces and bracelets
Sophie Stamp Skilfully constructed and intriguingly unique, Sophie Stamp’s tactile and kinetic jewellery ranges offer an interactive jewellery experience. Inspired by the beauty and movement of hidden mechanical components, the award-winning craftswoman engineers wearable pieces just crying out to be played with. From mesmerising spinning pendants embellished with fine lines of pure gold to her signature rolling rings, each piece is individually handcrafted by the designer in her studio. Sophie is fascinated by the temptation we have as humans, to fiddle and play with items worn or held about the person. She marries this with an appreciation of everyday mechanical instruments and technical objects that are regarded by most as being merely functional, but are on closer inspection, often constructed from elegant and beautiful shapes and components interacting with one another. She is very much concerned with the making process itself and interpreting age old, traditional hand techniques in a contemporary way. Sophie enjoys the challenge of making pieces that may look simple, but are very technical in their construction, and she uses various silversmithing techniques including gold inlay, repoussé and anticlastic forming on a very small scale, enabling her to engineer minimal, tactile forms in precious metal.
Stephanie Ray Stephanie works from her studio at Cockpit Arts, an exciting complex housing many designers of various disciplines based in central London. Steph’s jewellery designs have always owed themselves to her love of clean lines and simple forms. As her work has developed pieces now frequently also focus on the inclusion of contrasting wooden elements too, the delicate patterns of bamboo, warmth of walnut and understated glamour of ebony. ‘The addition of another material creates so many more exciting design opportunities that just ask to be explored’
Tracy Wilson Design has always been one of Tracy’s passions. She studied Interior design, following this with Masters and worked in a design environment for 17 years. Tracy changed career direction, completed an HNC in Jewellery and is currently living the dream! Working mainly in silver but often incorporating colour into her designs by adding gemstones, hints of gold, enamel and oxidising. The current collection ‘Identity’ was inspired by sound waves and how individual sound is to everyone and everything. During the design process Tracy has explored pattern, form and texture to complete this collection.