January 2025, Part 1
We all could use a treat right now. Besides, it feels good to get a terrific piece of art jewelry for ourselves while celebrating and supporting artists and the galleries who show them!
Art Jewelry Forum’s international gallery supporters celebrate and exhibit art jewelry. Our bi-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 certain to find a fantastic piece you simply can’t live without!
Contact the gallery directly for inquiries.
Gallery: In the Gallery at Brooklyn Metal Works, Brooklyn, NY, US (click the gallery name to link to its website)
Contact: Brian Weissman (click the gallerist’s name for email)
Artist: Mary Hallam Pearse
Retail price: US$1,500
Mary Hallam Pearse’s work centers around the symbolic and emotive resonance of jewelry, its materials, and the intricate interplay of ornament and how it resonates with the fabric of our shared culture.
Gallery: Zu design, Adelaide, Australia (click the gallery name to link to its website)
Contact: Jane Bowden (click the gallerist’s name for email)
Artist: Angela Giuliani
Retail price: AUS$16,800
The S Hook neckpiece, by Angela Giuliani, was created for Zu design & Jane Bowden, an exhibition celebrating Zu design and the people who work from its workshop. Giuliani has been working from Zu design since 2012. She is a process-driven maker, and this piece celebrates both material and function. The use of repetitive elements, specifically hundreds of S hooks, means this neckpiece can take on many forms.
Gallery: Fingers Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand (click the gallery name to link to its website)
Contact: Lisa Higgins (click the name for email)
Artist: Roy Mason
Retail price: NZ$285–$300
Roy Mason is one of the founding partners of Fingers Gallery. “These leaves have been carefully chosen from those that have fallen and been collected off the earth,” states the artist. “They’ve been dried and stabilized over the last 10 years. About 97% revert to brown … these are the exception. I stored [them] over this long period to ensure they were going to stay in the same tone and texture as you see them now. The 50 brooches in this collection, celebrating Fingers’ 50th anniversary, have been selected from my stored collection of over 2,500 leaves.” Leaves collected from Anzac Bay, Firth of Thames, Kaiaua, Kawau Island, Langs Beach, Matarangi Beach, Moturoa Island, Motutapu Island, Muriwai Beach, Otama Bay, Rangitoto Island.
Gallery: Baltimore Jewelry Center, Baltimore, MD, US (click the gallery name to link to its website)
Contact: Allison Gulick (click the name for email)
Artist: Vershali Jain
Retail price: US$900
Recent BJC micro-resident Vershali Jain creates playful yet delicate compositions. Color is a cornerstone of her artistic language, and the use of vitreous enamels lies at the center of her practice. This piece is part of a new body of work that revolves around nostalgia-inducing motifs and patterns. In Jain’s work, she explores the duality of her identity as an immigrant artist, and how it shapes her perspective and influences her creative process. She believes that art has the power to bridge gaps and facilitate understanding between cultures, and she hopes that her work serves as a catalyst for conversations around immigration, identity, and belonging.
Gallery: Pistachios Contemporary Art Jewelry, Chicago, IL, US (click the gallery name to link to its website)
Contact: The Pistachios Team (click the team name for email)
Artist: Mirjam Hiller
Retail price: US$4,295
This sizable brooch exemplifies how Mirjam Hiller expertly utilizes stainless steel and powder coating. Hiller explains, “The sheet of stainless steel is my blank page, which I fill with my thoughts and feelings, with my questions and answers. The creative process itself is an essential part of my work. The time and thus the intensity of the interaction with the growing piece is my basis for understanding things and passing them on.”
Gallery: Four Gallery, Gothenburg/Umeå, Sweden (click the gallery name to link to its website)
Contact: Karin Roy Andersson (click the gallerist’s name for email)
Artist: Lena Olson
Retail price: US$650
Lena Olson has been working with wood for many years. Her extensive knowledge of the material allows her to create soft, tactile shapes out of a hard and often willful material. The wood challenges the artist both technically and intellectually, and the jewelry expresses harmony and craft skill.
Gallery: Gravers Lane Gallery, Philadelphia, PA, US (click the gallery name to link to its website)
Contact: Chloe Le Pichon (click the name for email)
Artist: Ron Isaacs
Retail price: US$1,650
Ron Isaacs’s brooch is a perfect marriage of his art-making and a gorgeous piece of jewelry. This brooch also features his signature hidden dog—look hard enough and you will find it. Isaacs continues his 30+ year career of constructing and painting wood to resemble architectural clothing and other antique objects. Purposely devoid of figures, Isaacs’s work invites viewers to question what they are actually seeing. In this master’s hands, wood appears to be fabric, and leaves and branches are actually carefully constructed details. Combining trompe l’oeil painting with intricate wood assembling, Isaacs presents new sculptures that quietly demand a careful look to determine their true nature. “I am still fascinated by the old simple idea of resemblance, the very first idea of art after tools and shelter: That an object made of one material can take on the outward appearance and therefore some of the ‘reality’ of another,” explains Isaacs.
Gallery: Galerie Noel Guyomarc’h, bijoux et objets contemporains, Montreal, Canada (click the gallery name to link to its website)
Contact: Noel Guyomarc’h (click the gallerist’s name for email)
Artist: Sophie Hanagarth
Retail price: CAN$1,375
A pure wrought-iron pretzel suspended by a cord used for medals! The world of artist Sophie Hanagarth refers to popular culture, classical mythology, and identity.
Gallery: Galeria Reverso, Lisbon, Portugal (click the gallery name to link to its website)
Contact: Paula Crespo (click the gallerist’s name for email)
Artist: Ruudt Peters
Retail price: €3,030–3,790
“Walk with fear.” [Ruudt] Peters hopes that as others wear Terram, they will feel the energy of jewelry-turned-talisman. The energy that he works into each piece is transferred to the wearer. Emboldened by the power of their adornment, they find courage, freedom from fear. He says, “jewelry is not only a decoration, but it is very personal. It has a strong meaning, a bold character, it touches you. It says something emotional, it gives you strength.” As we finished our conversation, Peters shared his greatest learning moment in life: “You have to walk with fear.” To accept the fear is to have freedom to keep moving forward. (Text by Luiza deCamargo.)
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