Output details

'Lenticular' Jewellery

After winning the £10,000 Arts Foundation Award 2010, I have spent the last few years exploring new themes. Research and experimentation are key to the way I design and make jewellery. The award allowed me to spend more time on this process as I can spend days to weeks preparing wire, testing its properties and constructing objects. I have been fascinated by illusion and visual optical effects for many years; it is my aim to create pieces that emulate the perfection found within natural forms, yet highlight the imperfections in the way we see and the way we perceive. Influences include MC Esher and Op-Artist Bridget Riley who manipulate the viewer and create 3 dimensions in 2D. My research led me to explore other ways in which movement and depth are created so the motion effect seen in Lenticular printing became a strong influence. I began to construct interlaced black and white patterns within a surface made using thousands of tiny bi-metal wires. The jewellery pieces may at first seem like simple patterned forms. However, when tilted the pattern changes: from black to white, gold to silver or from 24ct to platinum. This effect is created from techniques I have developed in wirework and laser welding. The technique is original; in 2012 the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths Modern Jewellery Collection bought a brooch. This piece also received two Gold awards in the Goldsmiths’ Craftsmanship and Design Awards 2012, the International Jewellery London Award and The Assay Office Technological Innovation Award. In December 2013 I will have my third solo exhibition at The Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh, one of the leading Contemporary Applied Arts Galleries in the UK. By offering me this prestigious space to showcase my jewellery, Christina Jansen, Director, recognises my work as innovative, finely crafted, wearable and unique.