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United States

01/22/2024

Will You Be in Tucson for the 2024 Gem Show?

Be Sure to Attend the "Of the Garden’s Earth & Air" Exhibition!

By Yun Gee Park Gallery & Atelier

With fantastical creatures presented in evocative displays, this must-see exhibition at Yun Gee Park Gallery features work by Ahmi Yu, Jong Seok Lim, Lin Stanionis, Märta Mattsson, and Masumi Kataoka, and paintings by Frank Gonzales.

Of the Garden’s Earth & Air: Insects in Jewelry and Art
December 2, 2023–February 17, 2024
Yun Gee Park Gallery, Tucson, AZ, USA

Click on the photos to learn about what they show.

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The exhibition <em>Of the Garden’s Earth & Air: Insects in Jewelry and Art,</em> currently showing at Yun Gee Park Gallery in Tucson, AZ, until February 17, 2024, is a survey of the contemporary continuation of the long history of the insect form as inspiration in jewelry and art. | Exhibition view, <em>Of the Garden’s Earth & Air,</em> works by Ahmi Yu, Jong Seok Lim, Märta Mattsson, and Masumi Kataoka, paintings by Frank Gonzales, photo: Yun Gee Park Gallery

This installation-based exhibition features the works of art jewelry artists from Asia, Europe, and North America who explore the insect form in their practice, creating fantastical creatures from a variety of materials, sometimes combining traditional jewelry-making materials with actual insect parts. It also includes paintings by Phoenix-based artist Frank Gonzales, and incorporates dried and living local plant matter to further create an environment evoking the surrounding desert environment and the gallery gardens. | Exhibition view, <em>Of the Garden’s Earth & Air,</em> works by Ahmi Yu, Jong Seok Lim, Lin Stanionis, Märta Mattsson, and Masumi Kataoka, paintings by Frank Gonzales, photo: Yun Gee Park Gallery

Although they’re one of Earth’s most abundant life forms, comprising 80% of all animal species, insects can be divisive among humans. Gallerist and curator Yun Gee Park says, “I talked about it with several of the artists featured in this show. People seem to either love bugs or be repulsed by them. There doesn’t seem to be much middle ground. The idea of wearing an insect-inspired piece of jewelry seems to speak to a smaller group of collectors—those who enjoy the extraordinary characteristics of the insect and the magical and whimsical possibilities that artists create from this form.” | Event photo, <em>Of the Garden’s Earth & Air,</em> works by Ahmi Yu, Jong Seok Lim, and Märta Mattsson, paintings by Frank Gonzales, photo: Leslie Wardlaw

Gallery visitors experiencing the imaginative works of insect-inspired art jewelry. | Event photo, <em>Of the Garden’s Earth & Air,</em> works by Ahmi Yu, Jong Seok Lim, Märta Mattsson, and Masumi Kataoka, paintings by Frank Gonzales, photo: Leslie Wardlaw

Exhibition view, <em>Of the Garden’s Earth & Air.</em> (Left) Märta Mattson, <em>Slices,</em> brooch, beetle exoskeletons, copper, cubic zirconia, lacquer, resin, silver, 6 ¾ x 3 ½ x 2 ⅜ inches (170 x 90 x 60 mm), (center), Frank Gonzales, <em> Life on Life,</em> painting, (right) Lin Stanionis, <em>Confessional</em> necklace and <em>Parousia</em> brooch, cast resins, brooch also includes pearls and 18-karat gold findings, photo: Yun Gee Park Gallery

Gallerist and curator Yun Gee Park explains that her choice for curating an exhibition focused on the insect form was influenced in part by the form/structure of her gallery, where a variety of gardens comprise the gallery/gardens complex. Insects, along with birds, lizards, fish, and mammals, she adds, are all daily members of the gallery community. | Exhibition view, <em>Of the Garden’s Earth & Air,</em> works by (white pieces at left) Ahmi Yu, (middle foreground and background) Jong Seok Lim, and (right) Masumi Kataoka, paintings by Frank Gonzales, photo: Yun Gee Park Gallery

Of his work, Korean artist Jong Seok Lim says, “Most people may have a childhood memory of rummaging through the forest or their backyard, in search of bugs and insects. Their piercing yet pure-looking eyes, with mechanical-like body structures, definitely left a big impression on me. As years passed by and I came to adulthood, my curiosity toward these bugs and insects seemed long lost.” | Exhibition view, <em>Of the Garden’s Earth & Air,</em> work by Jong Seok Lim, photo: Yun Gee Park Gallery

Jong Seok Lim creates his forms using filigree to fashion intricate lace-like patterns. Filigree as a technique is often eschewed by artists because it’s extremely laborious, but the unique patterns and shapes achieved as a result compare to no others in its final form. It is a technique which acts as the foundation to Lim’s practice. In some instances, Lim applies paint, gold-leaf, or even ottchil (traditional, natural Korean lacquer), partially burning these off to achieve an attractive and distinctive, though unpredictable, surface that allows him to freely express a wide range of colors. | Jong Seok Lim, <em>Fairy Tale,</em> brooch, fine silver, sterling silver, nickel silver, pearls, ottchil, ottchil ashes, 6 ½ x 4 ⅜ x 2 ½ inches (165 x 110 x 65 mm), photo: artist

Remarking on his making process, Jong Seok Lim states, “As I start to put together the thin layers of threads, I cannot help but imagine the sparkling reflections in the sea horizons or perhaps water skimming through my ankles as I stand in the middle of a lake. The completed structures usually go through another round of transformation using the hammer and, as the pieces thin out, the material stretches, following the flow of force and energy. This flow is almost like the disappearance of the water at low tide. The repetition of irregular hammering marks allows the surface to become subtle as the distinct lines are no longer harsh. This to me, is like the traces of water that slowly disappear into the soft sandy surface, as like the high and low tide. The forming of thread affected by the layering and repetitive mark-making techniques allows me to naturally imagine the tidal movements, through which new opportunities and outcomes are brought about.” | Jong Seok Lim, <em>Moonlight,</em> brooch, fine silver, sterling silver, nickel silver, gold leaf, ottchil, 4 ¾ x 2 ¾ x 1 ⅝ inches (120 x 70 x 40 mm), photo: artist

About her work, Swedish artist Märta Mattsson states, “Sometimes I see beauty in things that other people find strange or are even repulsed by. I become fascinated when there is something you do not want to see and the feeling you get when you do not want to look at something, yet you still do. My jewelry deals with the tension that lies between attraction and repulsion. I take seemingly inappropriate materials, making ordinary and familiar objects seem extraordinary and unfamiliar.” | Exhibition view, <em>Of the Garden’s Earth & Air,</em>, Märta Mattsson, <em>Queen,</em> brooch, beetle exoskeleton, copper, crystal, lacquer, resin, steel, gold, 5 ⅞ x 3 ⅛ x 2 ⅜ inches (150 x 80 x 60 mm), photo: Yun Gee Park Gallery

Märta Mattsson sees her work as a means to recontemplate the wonders of the natural world by expanding on their already fantastic forms. She says, “In the 18th century, many new breeds of animals and plants were discovered, and it was the main era of cabinets of curiosities. People collected rarities because it gave them the feeling of being in the presence of something extraordinary and marvelous. The cabinets of curiosities were not meant to sympathize with the creatures on display, only marvel over their oddity. In a world where not many new and exotic breeds are discovered, I use dead creatures in my pieces to evoke wonder. The creatures are transformed and reborn—given a new life as objects of astonishment.” | Märta Mattsson, <em>Split!,</em> necklace, beetles, copper, cubic zirconia, lacquer, resin, silver, photo: artist

Japanese-born artist Masumi Kataoka’s work in the exhibition <em>Of the Garden’s Earth & Air</em> was inspired by mythical creatures, religious objects, funeral jewelry, and anthropomorphized animals, all of which have symbolic meaning embodying our longing for what we don’t have and what we wish we did. | Masumi Kataoka, from the series <em>Out of Longing,</em> brooch, copper, enamel, sterling silver, stainless steel, photo: artist

Masumi Kataoka’s work is made from actual insect parts, transformed into copper and then enameled. She chose to use these insect parts to invent imaginary creatures. This creates an emotional distance from the insect parts in a manner similar to the way that animals are used in children’s stories. | Exhibition view, <em>Of the Garden’s Earth & Air,</em>, Masumi Kataoka, Untitled, brooch, copper, enamel, sterling silver, stainless steel, cord, photo: Yun Gee Park Gallery

Although Masumi Kataoka aims to distance her viewers from the actual insects used in the creation of her pieces by creating imaginary insect-like creatures, she intentionally uses color reminiscent of flesh tones to retain a sense of the origins of these creatures as coming from within us. | Masumi Kataoka, from the series <em>Out of Longing,</em> brooch, copper, enamel, sterling silver, stainless steel, photo: artist

“A symbolism of pain, suffering, and desire for transcendence pervades the work of metalsmith Lin Stanionis,” stated Glen R. Brown in <em>Ornament</em> magazine, vol. 32, no. 4 (2009), “both as a product of engaged reflection on the inescapable mortal coil and as the result of a more detached and intellectual analysis of aesthetic and spiritual forms as diverse as prison tattoos, Baroque vanitas images, Eastern Orthodox Catholic imagery and the art nouveau jewelry of René Lalique … Stanionis’s territory is the ambiguous fearful/hopeful ground between extremes, and her brooches encompass both beauty and pathos––in fact the beauty of pathos, which inheres in that curious condition by which all that we cherish in life is made sweeter by the knowledge of its ultimate ephemerality.” | Lin Stanionis, <em>Confessional,</em> necklace, cast resins, pendant 4 x 2 ½ inches (102 x 57 mm), adjustable chain 24 inches (61 cm) long, photo: Jon Blumb

American artist Lin Stanionis has been using cast resin in her work for more than 25 years, initially in combination with sterling silver and other materials for use in her tabletop pieces and sculptures. A set of sterling flatware with resin handles, for example, was published in a special flatware issue of <em>Metalsmith</em> magazine in 1999. However, after 9/11, Stanionis set her focus exclusively on jewelry. She created wearable sculpture works utilizing traditional metalsmithing materials, such as precious metals and gems, but also incorporating elements and techniques such as enameling and pâte de verre. Her conscious use of resin as a single element was a natural extension of her concepts and her explorations with contemporary materials. The resin pieces that she created for the <em>Moon Drops</em> exhibition, at Yun Gee Park Gallery in 2022, were the first ones through which she realized her plans to combine her resin-based pieces with other elements, as with this piece in which colorful, luminous pearls strikingly contrast yet conceptually complete the black cast resin element. The black color of these resin pieces references both mourning jewelry and concepts of color in modernism. | Lin Stanionis, <em>Parousia,</em> brooch, cast resins, 18-karat gold findings, 3 x 4 x 1 inches (76 x 102 x 25 mm), photo: Jon Blumb

In preparation for the creation of her insect-inspired work in this exhibition, Korean artist Ahmi Yu paid particular attention to the small insects living in her environment. As she continued her study of these small and seemingly insignificant creatures, Yu became increasingly aware that the beauty of unadorned things, just as they are, endures longer than anything else, perhaps lasting long enough to use the word “eternity.” Through her forms, she wanted to intuitively showcase the nearly perfect symmetrical appearance of insects. | Ahmi Yu, <em>Black Beetle with Spread Wings,</em> brooch, leather, glass beads, sterling silver, 3 ⅞ x 2 ⅞ x 1 ⅛ inches (97 x 72 x 30 mm), photo: artist

As Ahmi Yu created her sketches for this series and selected materials to showcase the symmetrical appearance of insects, she simplified the intricate and complex structure of the insect as much as possible, aiming to reveal its essential form with minimal indications of its actual appearance. | Exhibition view, <em>Of the Garden’s Earth & Air,</em>, Ahmi Yu, <em>Leaf-like Bumble Bee,</em> necklace, leather, sterling silver, 23 ¼ inches (590 mm) long, photo: Yun Gee Park Gallery

Ahmi Yu decided on leather, with its warm and natural surface texture, as the most suitable material for expressing the insect shape she desired. Each piece was created through wet forming to retain the distinctive texture of the leather and reveal the intriguing representation of the insect's essential silhouette. In some cases, gold and glass beads were combined with the leather to further bring to life essential elements of a particular insect’s form. | Ahmi Yu, <em>White Silk Moth,</em> brooch, leather, gold-plated pure silver beads, sterling silver, 4 ¾ x 1 ⅝ x ¾ inches (120 x 42 x 20 mm), photo: artist

Exhibition view, <em>Of the Garden’s Earth & Air,</em> (left) Ahmi Yu, <em>White Beetle with Spread Wings,</em> brooch, leather, glass beads, sterling silver, 3 ⅞ x 2 ⅞ x 1 ⅛ inches (97 x 72 x 30 mm), (right) Jong Seok Lim, <em>The Golden Voyage,</em> fine silver, sterling silver, nickel silver, gold leaf, ottchil, 7 ⅝ x 4 ⅞ x ⅛ inches (195 x 125 x 3 mm), photo: Yun Gee Park Gallery

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Yun Gee Park Gallery & Atelier

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