April 2024, Part 2
There are so many reasons to purchase art jewelry…
- Celebrate that hard-earned promotion
- Honor a once-in-a-lifetime occasion
- Pay tribute to a major accomplishment
- Commemorate the beginning of a new relationship or the end of one
- Pounce on the perfect piece to round out an aspect of your collection
- Or invest in a treat for yourself—just because
Art Jewelry Forum’s international gallery supporters celebrate and exhibit art jewelry. Our monthly On Offer series allows this extensive network of international galleries to showcase extraordinary pieces personally selected to tempt and inspire you. Take a look. You’re bound to find a fantastic piece you simply can’t live without! (Please contact the gallery directly for inquiries.)
Gallery: Galerie Viceversa (click the gallery name to link to the website)
Contact: ilona Schwippel (click the gallerist’s name for email)
Artist: Kiko Gianocca (CH)
Retail price: 950 CHF
While presenting this brooch, Kiko Gianocca shares with us one of his favorite song by Jarvis Cocker: ‘’Oh, black magic that blows your mind away, And takes you somewhere that you wanna stay, Oh, that cold black magic …”
Gallery: Baltimore Jewelry Center, Baltimore, MD, US (click the gallery name to link to the website)
Contact: Allison Gulick (click the name for email)
Artist: Katie Kameen
Retail price: US$500
Katie Kameen is an assistant professor of 3D sculpture media at Augusta University in Augusta, GA, US. Kameen received her BFA in 3D studio art from Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, IL, US, and her MFA in metalsmithing and jewelry design from Indiana University in Bloomington, IN, US. Kameen’s work focuses on creating abstractions that playfully interpret personal experiences and emotions. This brooch is made entirely from secondhand plastic objects, which are cut apart and sewn into new compositions with reclaimed plastic thread. Using recognizable objects in unrecognizable forms, Kameen creates formal abstractions that illustrate her emotions, relationships, and experiences.
Gallery: Gallery Loupe, Montclair, NJ, US (click the gallery name to link to the website)
Contact: Patti Bleicher (click the gallerist’s name for email)
Artist: Keith Lewis
Retail price: US$3,600
Keith Lewis is a master American jeweler residing in Washington state. He is a distinguished professor of jewelry/metals/design at Central Washington University in Ellensburg, WA, US, where he has taught for almost 30 years. Lewis states that he is drawn to the jewelry medium because of its intimacy and historical connection with sentiment, a distinctive characteristic of jewelry found in all cultures throughout the ages.
Gallery: Four Gallery, Gothenburg, Sweden (click the gallery name to link to the website)
Contact: Karin Roy Andersson (click the gallerist’s name for email)
Artist: Tore Svensson
Retail price: €600
Tore Svensson is one of the pioneers of Swedish jewelry art and has a long, impressive career. Experience sits in his back, in his arms and hands. Paving the way for a new art genre requires perseverance, artistic strength, and perhaps also a bit of a playful mindset. These characteristics are also found in Svensson’s works: large iron bowls shaped by thousands of hammer strikes and strict, geometric shapes with surfaces that give the works warmth and sometimes offer a well-balanced amount of humor. This brooch belongs to a series of portraits that feature, to many art jewelers, well-known profiles. The color fields that make up hair, skin, and clothes are at the same time individual parts that balance each other in color and shape.
Gallery: Mahnaz Collection, New York, NY, US (click the gallery name to link to the website)
Contact: Noelle Wiegand (click the name for email)
Artist: Peter Skubic
Retail price: US$5,000
During his life, the award-winning artist Peter Skubic also served the field as an educator and curator. This excellent geometric brushed gold ring was completed during a critical time in his career, in 1975, when he organized the “Schmuck aus Stahl,” or “Jewelry in Steel,” symposium and in 1979 curated the Schmuck International 1900–1980 exhibition. This was the same year that he was selected as professor of jewelry design at the Fachhochschule in Cologne. While trained as a traditional goldsmith, and although the focus on geometry and architectural construction remained as an important part of his work, Skubic moved away from using gold due to conflict mining.
Gallery: Tereza Seabra, Lisbon, Portugal (click the gallery name to link to the website)
Contact: Tereza Seabra (click the gallerist’s name for email)
Artist: Svenja John
Retail price: €3,200, plus shipping
“I respond sensitively to my surrounding world and its changes. I extended my formal alphabet … ” says the artist Svenja John. Since 1994, John has worked with Makrofol® polycarbonate and computer-aided cutting techniques to produce individual parts for her creations. After manually re-working and coloring, the parts are transformed into complex, geometric pieces of jewelry. It’s a combination of high-tech and handcraftsmanship that is accomplished in a playful, natural manner. Computer designs and likewise designs created using paper and pencil. Additive production methods alongside paint box and paintbrush. The precision of industrial water-jet technology coupled with the precise use of hand files. This wonderful piece is part of John’s solo show at Galeria Tereza Seabra until May 17, 2024.
Gallery: Zu design (click the gallery name to link to the website)
Contact: Jane Bowden (click the gallerist’s name for email)
Artist: Jane Bowden
Retail price: AUS$2,185
This pair of earrings is a continuation of Jane Bowden’s Studies in Beads. The beadwork, which is hand-crocheted on sewing thread using a 0.6-mm crochet hook, forms a playful surface texture, catching and reflecting light. Bowden’s fascination with precision, and everything miniature, is showcased in this work.
Gallery: Galeria Reverso, Lisbon, Portugal (click the gallery name to link to the website)
Contact: Paula Crespo (click the gallerist’s name for email)
Artist: Birgit Laken
Retail price: €720
There are works that we appreciate for the story they tell, others for more or less explicit references to situations that affect us positively or negatively. There are others that we like without knowing why. Because they are apparently simple and cheerful? Because of the color combination? Because of the unusual shapes? By recycling materials we recognize? We feel all of this in these works by Birgit Laken, plus the always exceptional care in detail, whether in her silver or gold work, or, as in this case, in simple acrylic.
Gallery: Museum of Craft and Design (click the gallery name to link to the website)
Contact: Ken Irish (click the name for email)
Artist: Sandra Enterline
Retail price: US$475
Born in Oil City, PA, US, in 1960, Sandra Enterline graduated with an associate’s degree in jewelry and metalsmithing from the Rochester Institute of Technology, School for American Crafts in 1980. She went on to earn a BFA in metalsmithing from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1983. In addition to her studio work, Enterline gives lectures on her craft and conducts metalsmithing workshops. From 1991 to 1992, she held visiting professor and visiting artist positions at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, respectively. Currently, she guest lectures at universities in the San Francisco Bay Area, including the Academy of Art University and the California College of the Arts.
Gallery: Pistachios Contemporary Art Jewelry, Chicago, IL, US (click the gallery name to link to the website)
Contact: The Pistachios Team (click the name for email)
Artist: Kelly Jean Conroy
Retail price: US$1,485
Made with etched mother-of-pearl, this illustrative statement necklace speaks volumes. Birds soar across the surface, hinting at an open-ended narrative that the viewer can conceptualize. Oxidized sterling silver unifies the piece, and is formed to create a toggle closure in the shape of a bird.
Gallery: Fingers Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand (click the gallery name to link to the website)
Contact: Lisa Higgins (click the gallerist’s name for email)
Artist: A+M (Debbie Adamson & Craig McIntosh)
Retail price: Each NZ$760
In 2019, jewelers Debbie Adamson and Craig McIntosh set up a shared workshop in Central Dunedin where they began manufacturing a collective output under the moniker A+M. Described by the pair as “benchworks,” these pieces of jewelry are designed and fabricated by both makers in a non-hierarchical fashion, with the intention of being well-considered, wearable, and reproducible. A+M is an evolving project, with new pieces released as and when they are developed and originating from conversations about the history of studio craft in New Zealand, in which small-scale production plays a key role. Both jewelers also work independently under their own names.
Gallery: In the Gallery at Brooklyn Metal Works, Brooklyn, NY, US (click the gallery name to link to the website)
Contact: Brian Weissman (click the gallerist’s name for email)
Artist: Emily Culver
Retail price: US$300
“Journeying into unchartered territory is often preceded by a probe—an exploratory entity whose sole purpose is to survey and collect data. Whether it be the landscape of planet Earth, space, or the body, this machine always belongs away from ‘home.’ If given its own agency, would this tourist choose to become a part of this place? Perhaps it would desire to assimilate, set down roots, or dissolve into the atmosphere.” —Emily Culver
Gallery: Aaron Faber Gallery, New York, NY, US (click the gallery name to link to the website)
Contact: Patricia Kiley (click the name for email)
Artist: Sharon Church
Retail price: US$795
A rare find, these asymmetrical earrings in sterling silver, 14-karat gold, and diamonds are by the peerless metalsmith, designer, and educator Sharon Church (1948–2022), circa late 1980s. Church’s work is in numerous collections both public and private, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Smithsonian, MFA Boston, and MFA Houston, among others.
Gallery: Galerie Noel Guyomarc’h, bijoux et objets contemporains, Montreal, Canada (click the gallery name to link to the website)
Contact: Noel Guyomarc’h (click the gallerist’s name for email)
Artist: Brooke Marks-Swanson
Retail price: CAN$3,350
In the work of Brooke Marks-Swanson, repetition and tactility remain at the forefront of reflection during production. Interested in twisted silver wire, soldered with fine gold, she continues her reflection on connection, repetition, time, and patience. The twisted wire becomes spirals, formed slowly from the inside out, reinforced by gold solders, like the ancestral filigree technique. The pearl insertions add delicious light and lightness to her creations.
Gallery: Platina, Stockholm, Sweden (click the gallery name to link to the website)
Contact: Sofia Bjorkman (click the gallerist’s name for email)
Artist: Annette Dam
Retail price: US$3,900
The amber we find today is more or less 32 million years old. Traces from million of years ago tell us about the evolution of our planet. Looking 28 million years into the future, researchers predict that some plastic materials will remain on Earth. The non-degradable plastics will be left behind as fragments and imprints telling stories about Homo sapiens to future inhabitants. In this ring, Annette Dam has combined fragments from the past, represented in the amber, with today’s materials and traces from our current time—for example plastic hen rings depicting today’s animals and human-processed natural resources. What kind of treasures and imprints do we Homo sapiens add and leave behind?
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