Interviews

Heidi Lowe Gallery is currently having a two-person show called Home, featuring the work of Courtney Kemp and Karen Vanmol.

Courtney Kemp, who lives in Oregon, keeps both a jewelry and a sculpture practice. In her jewelry, she restructures mundane, domestic bits of living spaces into contemporary and precious wearables. She currently teaches at the Oregon College of Art and Craft and the University of Oregon.

Karen Vanmol, a jewelry artist based in Belgium, explores the tension between city and countryside as familiar childhood landscapes fade and as her understanding of the world is constantly “under construction.” This is her fourth time showing work at the Heidi Lowe Gallery.

Olivia Shih: Can you talk about your background and about how you found your way to making jewelry?

Courtney Kemp: Growing up, I was always excited about building and making. We lived on a farm that had been in my father’s family for years and was filled with really archaic architecture and machinery, so there was the consistent need for repairing and rebuilding. I fell into making jewelry in college without any prior experience or concrete knowledge about the field, but with a solid background in tinkering. I feel it was more the material itself that drew me in, rather than the format. The potentials of working with metal seemed endless.

In the past few years, Jorge Manilla has created a personal style of work that is the result of his Mexican background and conceptual education in Europe. In his work, Manilla often manipulates a wide array of materials to make sense of the intricate and painful relationship people have with religion. Currently, he is simultaneously working as a guest teacher, an artist, and a PhD student at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp. On the occasion of his show, called Beyond the Limits, at Galerie Ra in Amsterdam, I had a chance to ask him a few questions.

Olivia Shih: You first received technical jewelry training at the school of Design and Crafts (Mexican Institute of Fine Arts) in Mexico before enrolling at St Lucas University College of Art and Design Antwerp in Belgium for your master’s degree. How did this transition influence your work? 

Jorge Manilla: My education in Mexico opened a world of possibilities. Those years taught me that a piece of classical jewelry acquires its value by the materials and techniques used, as well as by its aesthetic and wearability. When I learned how to make jewelry I started selling it straight away, but I often asked myself, why did I do it? Who did I do it for?
Soon after that, I decided to move to Belgium. A year of sculpture at the Academy of Art in Ghent was the perfect bridge to start my contemporary jewelry education. During that year, I started to think more deeply about ideas, concepts, and processes.

At St Lucas, I learned to make jewelry by not making jewelry. During that time I forced myself not to think about the portability of the piece; I stopped using precious metals, which I think was one of the most difficult things to do.

Christian Hoedl, who has lived in both Austria and Germany, is known for creating thought-provoking contemporary jewelry for men. In his work, Hoedl moves effortlessly between fabric and metal, constructing precise yet deeply personal pieces. Jewelers’Werk Galerie in Washington DC is presenting his latest work.

Olivia Shih: In the past, you’ve often worked with scintillating fabric chains, which shift and change with the moving wearer. What first inspired you to “fabricate” with fabric instead of with metal?

Christian Hoedl: My inspiration came from contemporary dancers, who are gorgeous and most precise in their unique techniques and are constantly developing new modes of expression. I admire their endurance and their ability to redefine postures daily.

Next is my love of fabric, which comes from early childhood experience on the north Tyrolean Alps, with high quality cotton and many different interpretations of cotton into fabric. The last generation of amazing and newly developed threads, from Europe to Japan, has given me a large number of possibilities to work with, and my eyes shine bright just thinking of this.