October 2023, Part 2
There are so many reasons to purchase art jewelry…
- Honor a once-in-a-lifetime occasion
- Celebrate that hard-earned promotion
- Commemorate the beginning or end of a relationship
- Pay tribute to a major accomplishment
- Pounce on the perfect piece to round out an aspect of your collection
- Or treat 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: Gallery Viceversa, Lausanne, Switzerland (click the gallery name to link to the website)
Contact: ilona Schwippel (click gallerist’s name for email)
Artist: Bettina Speckner
Retail price: 2’800 CHF
Delving into the soul of old stories, Bettina Speckner is interested in our relationship with images as vectors of memory. Attaching more importance to the lived experience than to the preciousness of materials, the German jeweler transforms memory into jewelry, combining with a completely subjective freedom banal or particular objects that she sublimates into pieces to which she gives a timeless aspect. Sharing with great generosity, she forges the sublime and the profane into a new poetic harmony.
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 gallerist’s name for email)
Artist: Silvie Altschuler
Retail price: CAN$4,250
In her exploration, Silvie Altschuler reshapes the value of gold and precious stones, daringly challenging established norms. Just as life follows its intricate path, her art escapes predictable boundaries. Through materials like silicone and felt, she shapes characters that dance between whimsy and the mysteriously unfamiliar. The interplay of humor and irony seamlessly woven into her pieces disrupts the mundane, transcending expectations.
Gallery: Fingers Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand (click the gallery name to link to the website)
Contact: Lisa Higgins (click the name for email)
Artist: Alan Preston
Retail price: NZ$975
Alan Preston is a key figure in contemporary New Zealand jewelry. He was central to the development of what is now referred to as the “Bone, Stone, Shell” era and has an extensive exhibition history. In 1974, Preston was part of the collective that founded Fingers, Aotearoa’s longest-running contemporary jewelry gallery, which has remained at the heart of innovation in New Zealand jewelry for almost 50 years. This piece was made in response to the Kauri Museum’s “Creating with Kauri Makers Series 2021.” Each maker was gifted a small amount of Kauri gum and Kauri wood prior to the exhibition.
Gallery: Zu design (click the gallery name to link to the website)
Contact: Jane Bowden (click gallerist’s name for email)
Artist: Polly Dymond
Retail price: AUS$330
These earrings showcase Dymond’s commitment to reusing polystyrene waste. She experiments and perfects electroforming, pushing this work by adding plastic and glass “gemstones.” Layers of paint color the surface and are sanded back until Dymond is happy with the finish, with the copper layer of electroforming peeking through.
Gallery: Four Gallery, Gothenburg, Sweden (click the gallery name to link to the website)
Contact: Karin Roy Andersson (click gallerist’s name for email)
Artist: Deganit Stern Schocken
Retail price: €5,000
The work of Deganit Stern Schocken is in a way the essence of contemporary jewelry: skilled craft combined with a powerful artistic expression. Stern Schocken combines rough, unpolished parts—objects that could have been found in the street and viewed as rubbish—with elegant silvery or strong-colored parts that mirror the rusty steel twins and bring out their colors and details. The work has balance, sensitivity, political edges, and humor—contemporary jewelry at its best!
Gallery: Platina Stockholm AB, Stockholm, Sweden (click the gallery name to link to the website)
Contact: Sofia Björkman (click gallerist’s name for email)
Artist: Mielle Harvey
Retail price: US$4,700
Mielle Harvey is a multidisciplinary artist who has studied and worked in many places. She moves often but currently resides outside of New York. Her artwork is driven by her investigation of the human relationship to nature. It finds form in various mediums such as jewelry, drawing, and painting. She does tend to probe at the dark side of things and feels that beauty lies in the tension between the lovely and the ugly, or the growth and the decay. The flowers are paintings based on an image from an antique postcard. She thought the blue forget-me-nots on the dark background had such a beautiful yet surreal quality.
Gallery: Mahnaz Collection (click the gallery name to link to the website)
Contact: Noelle Wiegand (click name for email)
Artist: Donald Friedlich
Retail price: US$2,500
Donald Friedlich is recognized as a leading American glass jewelry artist with a 40-plus-year career. This Erosion Series convertible brooch/pendant is a strong example of the artist’s early work, in which he sandblasted rhodonite to mimic natural erosion and enhance the gem’s inherent beauty. Friedlich states, “My inspirations included the landscape of the American Southwest, the art and architecture of Japan, the sculpture of Isamu Noguchi, and paintings of Richard Diebenkorn.” Other examples of the Erosion Series are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Friedlich has won numerous accolades over the decades and continues to do so: most recently, he was awarded Best In Show, Smithsonian Craft Show, Washington, DC (2022).
Gallery: Galeria Reverso, Lisbon, Portugal (click the gallery name to link to the website)
Contact: Paula Crespo (click gallerist’s name for email)
Artist: Lin Cheung
Retail price: €2,150
“I have been exploring stone carving for almost a decade,” said Lin Cheung this year, “and each time I pick up a new stone, I’m back to the beginning again. ‘Skin-deep’ means superficial, no depth, and engagement in only surface qualities. We also say ‘beauty is skin-deep,’ and the phrase reminds me that I am only ever touching the surface of a stone-carving journey.”
Gallery: Pistachios Contemporary Art Jewelry (click the gallery name to link to the website)
Contact: The Pistachios Team (click name for email)
Artist: Carin Jones
Retail price: US$395
Made with real rib bones from a mink, these oxidized sterling silver earrings have a bit of edge. And with faceted aquamarines that reflect the light beautifully, these earrings are certainly a conversation starter.
Gallery: Funaki (click the gallery name to link to the website)
Contact: Katie Scott (click gallerist’s name for email)
Artist: Helen Britton
Retail price: AUS$6,300
Slimy the Snail is the newest in Helen Britton’s ongoing series of Plastic Animals, a series that uses the vintage material galalith alongside gold and diamonds. Galalith was invented in the late 19th century and is considered one of the earliest forms of plastic, though it was made with milk protein. The profligate use of animal product to make decorative baubles—which ended with food rationing in the 1940s—is an idea Britton is acknowledging here. In a sense, she is giving back the material to the animal kingdom. Slimy is one of the most vibrant pieces to date, with drips that move independent of the main form.
Gallery: Galeria Tereza Seabra, Lisbon, Portugal (click the gallery name to link to the website)
Contact: Tereza Seabra (click the name for email)
Artist: Catarina Silva
Retail price: €500, plus shipping
“Memory through images and images that evoke memories,” says Catarina Silva, describing her work. “A collection of celebrations, memories in the shape of candy wrappers, carefully laid out and saved. Rituals. A collection of jewelry that evokes the perishable beauty of memories.” These new pieces by the Portuguese artist were made for her solo show on exhibit at Galeria Tereza Seabra until November 18, 2023. These jewels are a happy combination between traditional art nouveau-inspired jewelry, exquisitely crafted, and the ever-present sense of humor in this artist’s work.
Gallery: Baltimore Jewelry Center, Baltimore, Maryland, US (click the gallery name to link to the website)
Contact: Allison Gulick (click the name for email)
Artist: Cindy Cheng
Retail price: US$500
Cindy Cheng lives and works in Baltimore, MD. She holds a BA from Mount Holyoke College and an MFA from MICA’s Mount Royal School of Art. Her background is in sculpture and installation, but since the spring of 2022 she’s been making a serious foray into jewelry and wearables as an extension of her artistic practice. Her jewelry work has resulted in a number of unique pieces which are then incorporated back into her drawings, sculptures, and installations.
Gallery: Thereza Pedrosa Gallery, Asolo, Italy (click the gallery name to link to the website)
Contact: Thereza Pedrosa (click gallerist’s name for email)
Artist: Jana Machatová
Retail price: €2,200
In this new body of works created in 2023, Slovak artist Jana Machatová once again showcases her narrative sensibility, aesthetic poetics, and exquisite execution. Each work encapsulates a unique and special narrative for the artist, but at the same time is open to new interpretations by the wearer. Your Words Are like Pearls is simply a poem in a brooch.
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