Output details
34 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
University of Edinburgh
A Cutting Edge
This output comprises experimental jewellery pieces made to explore the relationship between the use of the computer and the traditional crafts.
The enamelled ‘Drape Necklace’ (2008) was laser-cut from thin industrial pre-enamel coated steel. These cut filigree sheets were then sifted with powdered enamel in the studio of the Enamel Research Centre in Bristol, UWE, where Bottomley was a visiting artist 2007-10. This object challenged typical uses of enamel in jewellery through: its large scale; the application of enamel to steel, rather than copper or silver; the use of a laser cut technology to cut non-uniform geometric shapes from metal (not one of the repeated pattern circles or segments is identical); and the innovative method of making utilising the pressing and forming of metal while hot and covered in molten enamel.
Other pieces explored the aesthetic potential of using laser-cutting to transfer patterns that have the fluidity of textile, onto enamelled metal surfaces.
This work was exhibited in two juried exhibitions in 2008, 'Digitaler Formenschatz' (DE) and 'Playing with Fire' (UK). Bottomley’s digital laser engraved, cut and photo-etched jewellery was selected under the exhibition criterion of makers who worked with innovative techniques and technologies.
‘Digitaler Formenschatz / Treasury of Digital Form’
‘Der Computer im Kunsthandwerk / The computer in the arts and crafts’
Sept – Oct 08 Galerie Handwerk, Munich, Germany
Curated by the Chamber of Crafts Munich and Upper Bavaria, Handwerkskammerfür München und Oberbayern.
‘Playing with Fire, touring exhibition Sep 2008- Jan 2010’
The Devon Guild of Craftsmen (20 Sept–8 Nov 08), Shire Hall Gallery, Stafford (15 Nov 08–4 Jan 09), Visual Arts Centre, Scunthorpe (28 Feb–9 May 09), Rhyl Arts Centre (6 June–18 July 09), Bilston Craft Gallery, Wolverhampton (5 Sept–31 Oct 09), Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum (14 Nov 09–10 Jan 2010)
