March 2024, Part 1
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: Tereza Seabra, Lisbon, Portugal (click the gallery name to link to the website)
Contact: Tereza Seabra (click the gallerist’s name for email)
Artist: Camilla Prey
Retail price: €600, plus shipping
“Camilla Prey’s work delves into shared languages and heritage from jewelry and visual arts. The process she employs to achieve her results takes center stage in her work and represents a practice of language positioning. The objects that remain from this process are performative; they act as instruments one or more individuals activate to attain meaning or awareness. Though provocative in their departure from traditional expectations of materiality and wearability in jewelry, Prey’s pieces foster new connections to the body and between bodies through experimentation, thus creating meaning within this interaction. This aligns with the exhibition title Merging into Pieces, at Tereza Seabra Gallery.” —Pedro Sequeira, writing for this show
Gallery: Thereza Pedrosa Gallery, Asolo, Italy (click the gallery name to link to the website)
Contact: Thereza Pedrosa (click the gallerist’s name for email)
Artist: Maria Rosa Franzin
Retail price: €860
In a touching celebration of her artistic journey, Maria Rosa Franzin presents a fascinating new collection of works on the 35th anniversary of her first exhibition, in 1989. The exhibition is aptly titled Percorsi, or pathways, and is a tribute to the extraordinary routes that have shaped her life and artistic expression.
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: Ana Albuquerque
Retail price: €10,835
“Cut-out pieces of tea and coffee cups, attracted by magnets into a gold tube, were the chosen way to enhance the relationships that revolve around the daily objects of conviviality,” explains Ana Albuquerque. “They belonged to a set used by my family during picnics that took place in the 70s. Invisible threads and meshes that multiply, giving meaning to what we do and to how we live, are what attracts and separates us. Realizing that 25 years have passed since the beginning of Reverso made me confront [this fact] with an important milestone of continuity, journey, and dialogue. Looking back, memories blend together, making time elastic. Belonging is part of our integrity—belonging to a place, connecting to others, belonging, being long in, is an ode to this possibility.”
Gallery: Museum of Craft and Design, San Francisco, CA, US (click the museum’s name to link to the website)
Contact: Ken Irish (click the name for email)
Artist: Adam Atkinson
Retail price: US$210
An oxidized sterling silver bracelet with an oval chain in an adjustable length. Each bracelet features four bunched-up oval charms. Light and easy for everyday wear or perfect for a night out! Adam Atkinson is a metalsmith, curator, and educator. He received an MFA in metal design at East Carolina University in 2019, and a BFA in interdisciplinary studio practices at Boise State University in 2013. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally including the Wayne Art Center, Boone Art and History Museum, and Nagoya Zokei University, in Nagoya, Japan, among others. He has been awarded numerous residencies including the Emerging Artist Residency at the Baltimore Jewelry Center and the three-year residency at Penland School of Craft. He teaches widely across the United States.
Gallery: Viceversa, Lausanne, Switzerland (click the gallery name to link to the website)
Contact: ilona Schwippel (click the gallerist’s name for email)
Artist: Sigurd Bronger
Retail price: 2’600 CHF
Sustainable Construction piece nr. 032 is part of the impressive solo exhibition Wearables, at Die Neue Sammlung – The Design Museum, in Munich, running March 2–June 2, 2024. “Die Neue Sammlung is honored to present the work of [the Norwegian artist] Sigurd Bronger, whose artistic language is unique not only in Norway, but worldwide, in his first solo exhibition outside his home country.”
Gallery: Galerie Noel Guyomarc’h, bijoux et objets contemporains (click the gallery name to link to the website)
Contact: Noel Guyomarc’h (click the gallerist’s name for email)
Artist: Caroline Broadhead
Retail price: CAN$5,900
Caroline Broadhead is not confined by the physical scale or wearability of jewelry, although the concept of jewelry has been a consistent element spanning her career of more than 50 years. Her recent works have confronted the image of a pearl, created by a meticulous configuration of tiny glass beads where small individual units are brought together to make a larger whole representing a sort of unity and teamwork. Broadhead is attracted to the idea of how one thing or material can closely reference another.
Gallery: Platina, Stockholm, Sweden (click the gallery name to link to the website)
Contact: Sofia Björkman (click the gallerist’s name for email)
Artist: Fumiki Taguchi
Retail price: US$2,900
Fumiki Taguchi’s works from The White Expression series sparkle as if the pieces were covered in diamonds. In fact, they are made solely of metal using an engraving technique called Wabori. The craftsman who masters this technique uses chisels and hammers to carve facets into the surface. Regular engraving is fine and delicate, while Wabori engraving is considered more strong and powerful. Fine craftsmanship of this traditional Japanese chasing technique continues to evolve in contemporary art jewelry.
Gallery: Galerie Door, Mariaheide, Netherlands (click the gallery name to link to the website)
Contact: Doreen Timmers (click the gallerist’s name for email)
Artist: Danni Schwaag
Retail price: €245–465
These Genderstars, by Danni Schwaag, are part of the BOYS BOYS BOYS exhibition. “On the subject of ‘boys boys boys,’” says Schwaag, “I immediately thought of the gender star that we use in German to include all diverse people * (he / she / diverse …). The asterisk is placed before the feminine form of the word : *innen *in (example: schüler*in schüler*innen). The gender asterisk actually has different numbers of rays in different typographic fonts, and by playing with, discarding, flipping, or bending the rays, I created different variations of the stars, wearable as a brooch, pin, and earring. As the main material I chose galalith in different colors to express diversity.”
Gallery: Funaki, Melbourne, Australia (click the gallery name to link to the website)
Contact: Katie Scott (click the gallerist’s name for email)
Artist: Jiro Kamata
Retail price: AUS$15,000
A magnificent example of Jiro Kamata’s work with camera lenses and PVD coatings, this necklace seems to soak up light and hold it within. It has references to a classical graded pearl necklace and showcases the artist’s technical mastery and understanding of balance, weight, and comfort. Truly a piece for multiple generations to treasure.
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: Karen Gilbert
Retail price: US$895
California-based artist Karen Gilbert combines hand-blown glass with mica, sterling silver, and bronze to create this unique asymmetrical necklace. Perfectly balanced, the layered chain is soft to the touch with delicate details and is contrasted by solid pieces of glass and mica.
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: Lydia Elsa Martin
Retail price: US$475
Lydia Martin is a contemporary jeweler living, working, and teaching in Little Rock, AR, US. Her work, built upon the foundations of technical skill, is an exploration of material skill, surface, line, and movement. Martin received an MFA from State University of New York at New Paltz in 2017 and a BFA from Rochester Institute of Technology. She has taught at a variety of institutions including Baltimore Jewelry Center, Towson University, and Penland School of Crafts. Currently, she is the Windgate Artist in Residence in Metals at UA Little Rock, where she heads the jewelry and metalsmithing program.
Gallery: Mahnaz Collection, New York City, US (click the gallery name to link to the website)
Contact: Noelle Wiegand (click the name for email)
Artist: Ted Noten
Retail price: US$650
What better way to show-off your status (with a pinch of irony) than by wearing a piece of an ultra-expensive car as a brooch? The Dutch world-renowned artist Ted Noten critiques contemporary life and consumer culture by incorporating readymade objects into his practice. Responding to the idea that everyone wants to own a Mercedes Benz, Noten hand cut 100 pieces of metal from the body of a luxury German vehicle and turned it into jewelry—the ultimate status symbol. Signed, dated on back 2009.
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 with, 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.
Contact: Jane Bowden (click the gallerist’s name for email)
Artist: Zoe Jay Veness
Retail price: Each AUS$280
Zoe Jay Veness writes that her practice “focuses on aesthetics of time and interests in movement, materiality, and place through intricately detailed surfaces and forms in paper or metal.” This series of Ribbon brooches is created by layering varying combinations of white, yellow, and pink archival cotton rag paper, creating subtle color changes in each piece. This series is part of Zu design’s Adelaide Fringe Exhibition, Zu design – in full colour.
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