Youth Movement!
NINE NEW GRADUATES
13th Nov - 25th Jan 2015
Also featuring: SPARKLE -A SUMPTUOUS CHRISTMAS SHOWCASE
Invitation to the exhibition
YOUTH MOVEMENT!
Nine New Graduates
Move Over! Make Way! Meet the Contemporary Jewellery World’s Next Generation!
Unleashing youthful energy, fresh ideas and innovative creations, Kath Libbert Jewellery Gallery is delighted to introduce Nine New Graduates buzzing on our radar this year.
Technology meets art meets jewellery in this amazing collection that includes Smart Materials colour changing jewellery; Fill Your Own bright yellow Skip Brooches; kinetic gemstone rings; tough titanium Highland Clan Thistle Brooches; Wired Wearables - dramatic neckpieces and bangles drawn in steel – just a few of the visual treats created by this year’s New Wave!
Based at Salts Mill since 1996, Kath Libbert Jewellery Gallery is renowned for its annual pick of the crop of new talents from across the UK’s universities. Curator Kath Libbert who selected the nine artists says ‘I always look for individuality and a fresh approach and the work of this year’s graduates is sure to surprise and stimulate!’
Moving Onwards and Upwards:
Beth Spowart, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, Dundee – 1st Class Honours, uses Smart Materials to create innovative jewellery which interacts uniquely with each individual wearer by changing colours through the stimulus of their body heat – an exciting experience for the wearer and definitely a conversation opener!
Jaki Coffey, National College of Art and Design, Dublin – 1st Class Honours, loves searching out treasure in skips and uses this as her inspiration for a series of funky bright yellow impeccably made powder coated copper Skip Brooches – the wearer then chooses what to fill up their Skip with from a selection of colourful ‘rubbish’ – becoming the curator of their own jewellery and making a provocative poke at our notions of preciousness!
Rebecca E Smith, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, Dundee - 1st Class Honours, discovered 300 wonderful love letters sent between her grandparents during World War ll and wanted as a testament to both this love story and to the power of letter writing, now a lost art, to create sentimental one off brooches, earrings and necklaces capturing the original handwriting, old photographs and vintage colours in a subtle palette of enamels. On an interactive note, Rebecca invites visitors to this exhibition to let her create jewellery capturing their own personal artefacts.
Lindsay Hill, Glasgow School of Art, BA Honours, employs advanced digital technologies to set stones kinetically in her striking rings whose bold symmetrical lines are also inspired by the facets on the gemstones they house. Both supremely elegant and great fun – the glinting gem tilts backwards and forwards as you move!
Natalie Lee, Birmingham School of Jewellery, 1st Class Honours, crafts Wired Wearables a collection of dramatic arm and neckpieces. An extension of her drawings, the fluid lines in steel are skilfully manipulated using a PUK welder and then enamelled in deep greys with highlights of powder blue and mauve. The continuous play of light and shadow the pieces cast when worn “symbolise the transit of time, a progression representing both the past and the future.” she says.
Karen Elizabeth Donovan, Edinburgh College of Art, MA Distinction, masterfully moves that hardest of metals titanium to create exquisite filigree-like necklaces bracelets and Highland Clan brooches gently tinted in blues, greens and golds. Scotland’s rich social history, its flora, and the materiality of titanium are her inspiration: “Plants define the character of a Nation or place. In Vermont, where I was born, we define ourselves by the Maple Tree. In Scotland we are often defined by the Thistle…..Titanium has a certain feel to it; a noise it makes when I brush my hand across it, and a smell it creates when I pierce, file and sand it. It is lightweight, strong, durable, and springy. It presents challenges to overcome and work around. It is sensual and it is home.”
Prudence Horrocks, Edinburgh College of Art, MA, inspired by the drawn line and a desire to replicate the patterns that are possible in pen and ink into jewellery, has crafted a beautiful series of rings, brooches and necklaces. In a classic palette of matt white and black acrylic she has embedded fine lines of silver and gold, creating a sophisticated elegant and supremely wearable collection.
Georgia Rose West, Colchester School of Art and Design, University of Essex, BA Honours – creates delightful small copper bowls, forming the metal into fluid shapes embellished with a great variety of creamy enamel patterning, each one having its own personality.
Rosie Deegan, Nottingham Trent University, 1st Class Honours - a mixed media, glass and metalwork artist, presents a quirky humorous body of work For a Man of Substance. The ironic title refers to her collection of Impotent Tools – made from glass and precious metals, they are exquisitely handcrafted but practically pointless!
Also showing 'Sparkle' featuring: Mia Chicco; Susanna Hanl; Charlotte Valkeniers; Lisa Hamilton.
