On Offer – Art Jewelry Forum
7 min readJune 2022, Part 2
There are so many reasons to purchase art jewelry…
- You got that hard-earned promotion—celebrate!
- You’re experiencing a once-in-a-lifetime occasion—honor it.
- You wrapped up that major accomplishment—pay it tribute.
- You want to mark the beginning of a new relationship or the end of one—commemorate it.
- Perhaps it’s an investment—do it!
- It’s the perfect piece to round out an aspect of your collection—pounce!
- Or maybe it’s as 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 have to add to your collection! (Please contact the gallery directly for inquiries.)
Gallery: Gallery Loupe
Contact: Patti Bleicher
Artist: Yutaka Minegishi
Retail price: US$3,200
Yutaka Minegishi studied metalwork at Hiko Mizuno College of Jewelry, in Tokyo, before moving to Germany, where he was a guest student at Fachhochschule, in Pforzheim. From 1996–2002, he studied under Otto Künzli at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Munich, from which he received a graduate degree in 2003. He has exhibited widely, including three solo shows at the prestigious Galerie Wittenbrink, in Munich, and group exhibitions at the National Gallery of Victoria; and at Project Space as part of Radiant Pavilion, at RMIT University, Melbourne. Minegishi is the recipient of several awards, including DAAD Preis (2003); Bayerischer Staatspreis (2014); and Förderpreis der Landeshauptstadt (2016), Munich. He is in several important collections, including the Pinakothek der Moderne, die Neue Sammlung, Munich; Stichting Françoise van den Bosch, Amsterdam; Hiko Mizuno College of Jewelry, Tokyo; Muzeum Českého Ráje, Turnov, Czech Republic; and Alice and Louis Koch Collection, Swiss National Museum, Zurich. In 2019 Minegishi was included in Schmuck, at the IHM, in Munich, where he was a recipient of the coveted Herbert Hofmann Prize.
Gallery: Galerie Spektrum
Contact: Jürgen Eickhoff
Artist: Detlef Thomas
Retail price: US$5,000
Detlef Thomas’s theme was “the ultimate ring.” For him, it meant reducing the “ring” to its essentials. And he came to a very good result.
Gallery: Thereza Pedrosa Gallery
Contact: Thereza Pedrosa
Artist: Maria Rosa Franzin
Retail price: €430
Maria Rosa Franzin often uses ancient techniques and materials in her work. Her close relationship with the world of art has greatly influenced her jewelry, and from the very beginning she adopted a unique pictorial approach.
Gallery: Galerie Noel Guyomarc’h
Contact: Noel Guyomarc’h
Artist: Kaori Juzu
Retail price: Each CAN$560
“108 points of view.” This corpus refers to a significant number in Buddhism. All over Japan at midnight on New Year’s eve, Buddhist temples ring their bells a total of 108 times to free human beings from their Kleshas, or 108 defilements. Kaori Juzu drew her inspiration from this ritual to create 108 unique miniature wearable artworks (which can be worn as earrings or pins) by conforming to a self-imposed rule. During the lockdown caused by the coronavirus crisis, she re-used remaining and left over materials from previous works, as a way to materialize a purifying process, an artistic path to resilience.
Gallery: Platina Stockholm
Contact: Sofia Björkman
Artist: Julia Walter
Retail price: US$2,000
Julia Walter works with condensed form for complex matters where intuitive drawings create her motifs. She likes to play with the vision and wants to leave space for the wearer of the work. This pendant is made of reconstructed lapis lazuli. The size is big, as if it could be a real snake. Do you dare to wear it? Walter is a jewelry artist based in Amsterdam.
Gallery: Galerie Marzee
Contact: Marie-José van den Hout
Artist: Jonathan Boyd
Retail price: €1,325
Jonathan Boyd’s latest work is a continuation of his earlier work where texts were incorporated into typesetting as if they came right out of the printing press. Computer technology and electroforming now make it possible to incorporate written text into his jewelry. His current exhibition, Emergent Dialogues of the Topophilic Line, is on display at Galerie Marzee until June 15, 2022. Parts of the exhibition will be on display at Schmuck – Frame, in Munich, from July 6–10, 2022.
Gallery: Galeria Reverso
Contact: Paula Crespo
Artist: Lauren Kalman
Retail price: €485
The symbols in Icons of the Flesh are abstractions that point toward the body and prompt the viewer to question the complicated process of identity-building. These notions are contrasted by the representation of sexualized body parts and genitalia. Works in this series are described as badges, collars, and buttons, rather than necklaces or brooches—allusions to wearable communication devices as seen in military use or in political movements. There is also levity in their form, as they are almost naive in their simplified rendering of anatomy.
Gallery: Baltimore Jewelry Center
Contact: Shane Prada
Artist: April Wood
Retail price: US$525
April Wood is a metalsmith living and working in Baltimore, MD. A co-founder of the Baltimore Jewelry Center, April received her BFA in studio art, with a concentration in metals & jewelry from Texas State University – San Marcos and her MFA from Towson University. Wood has taught at the Maryland Institute College of Art, the Corcoran College of Art and Design, Penland School of Crafts, Idyllwild Arts Academy, and Towson University. Her work has been featured in Metalsmith, Surface Design Journal, and Sculpture. She has exhibited her work nationally and internationally, including a solo exhibition at the Austin Museum of Art and SIERAAD International Art Jewelry Fair, in Amsterdam.
Gallery: Four Gallery
Contact: Karin Roy Andersson
Artist: Flóra Vági
Retail price: €400
Flóra Vági works mostly in natural materials like paper or, as in this case, wood. In her hands the materials develop into something new. It is as if she is giving water to a seed that grows to be a tree or a flower; covering a worm in silk, making it become a butterfly; or lighting a log on fire, turning it into a black piece of coal. She finds and brings out the soul of the material, and she gives it a new identity.
Gallery: Fingers Gallery
Contact: Lisa Higgins
Artist: Sharon Fitness
Retail price: NZ$445
Sharon Fitness explores the concept of “jewelry-ness,” testing the fine line between everyday objects and wearable jewelry. “Mind Switch 2020—helping you change the perspective on all sorts of things.”
Fitness graduated from MIT School of Visual Arts in 2007, majoring in contemporary jewelry. She has exhibited in many exhibitions throughout New Zealand and internationally, including Wunderruma (Munich, 2014; Auckland, 2016), Attitude as Form (Sydney, 2015) and Medusa: Jewellery and Taboos (Paris, 2017). She contributes to the jewelry collaboration Handshake. Fitness lives and works near Auckland, and believes in saving the world … “one brooch at a time.”
Gallery: Galeria Tereza Seabra
Contact: Tereza Seabra
Artist: Marta Costa Reis
Retail price: €80 each, plus shipping
“There are images that survive over time and whose significance doesn’t survive with them,” says Marta Costa Reis. “The historical and archeological records show us objects and symbols whose meaning has faded away. There is something inherently mysterious in that lost past, in our perceptions of what we no longer understand. The symbols of our own time will also be part of that group of mysterious images in a future we don’t have access to. We can’t know how the simple or complex things of our daily lives will be looked upon, the same way our gaze into the past is full of uncertainty. The feeling that there is something behind the veils of reality, which we can perhaps grasp, is part of that fascination, even if it is all a figment of our imagination. In this series of works I chose objects and shapes that interest me and played with them, making them familiar and finally usable. Some will be recognizable, some not so much. They are a moment in time, in a history we will never fully know. These pieces are question marks.”
Gallery: Galerie Elsa Vanier
Contact: Elsa Vanier
Artist: Martin Spreng
Retail price: €4,400
In this brooch, the beautiful topaz crystal is underlined by titanium lines and platinum layers. Chiseling and stamping seem to mimic the crystalline structure and offer a geological landscape. Martin Spreng followed a career path from cabinetmaking to jewelry. He usually mixes fine gold, platinum, silver, wood, and crystals. His unique pieces, forged or hammered, reveal a sculptor’s approach, moved by the beauty of precious matters.
