Some of the best new jewellery at Collect 2024
Jewellery can come in a huge range of materials, from the most precious metals to reused and recycled material. It’s a hugely varied and vibrant art form. It’s always exciting to see what is out there in the contemporary jewellery world, whether it’s favourite artists or new talents. Collect 2024, the Crafts Council annual fair, brought together some of the best new jewellery from craft galleries from around the world.
The Goldsmiths’ Company
The Goldsmiths’ Company champion UK jewellery makers and silversmiths. They took a large stand at the fair with a huge number of makers. Their displays focused on brooches, a form of jewellery which deserves a reboot and which they have been championing in recent exhibitions and publications. A spectacular wall display brought together 100 brooches by many of the best UK jewellers, showing the huge variety and invention possible within a small physical canvas. As a brooch enthusiast, I heartily approved.
Although the Company prioritises work in precious metals, colourful gemstones and enamels combined with inventive shapes and techniques offered a huge range of decorative possibilities, from the elegant to the avant garde.
The Company was set up in 1328 to govern and support goldsmiths and jewellers but was principally concerned with silversmithing. The famous 1961 Exhibition of Modern Jewellery saw the start of an engagement with contemporary jewellery which has continued ever since.
The Goldsmiths’ Company shows jewellery exhibitions at London’s Goldsmiths’ Centre and at Goldsmiths’ Hall, runs the annual Goldsmiths’ Fair and is the perfect place to look for exciting contemporary jewellery.
Objects Beautiful
London’s new Objects Beautiful gallery showed one of the largest groups of jewellery in the show, representing nearly 30 makers. They included jewellery in a rainbow of colours, made from a variety of materials. They also had one of the most imaginative displays with a series of large neckpieces suspended on acrylic loops from the ceiling.
German jeweller Carina Shoshtary’s strange and wonderful pieces include her Belladonna brooches made from PLA (bio plastic), glass, vintage, lucite, lacquer, silver and stainless steel. They look like jewels to be worn in a post apocalypse landscape and have wonderfully bright colours.
Jenny Jansson’s works shared the fashion for the floral shown across Collect. Her oversized necklaces are floral garlands made from paper and acrylics.
Liana Patthis takes the unwanted and turns it into something beautiful. Her brooches and bangles from the To mend my broken heart series take pieces of colourful Asian ceramics and join them with silver chains.
Design and Crafts Council, Ireland
One of the best features of Collect are the international galleries. Although post Brexit bureaucracy has limited the number of European galleries, it’s still a place to see jewellery from around the globe.
The Irish Design and Crafts Council presented ceramics, sculpture and glass with a small amount of jewellery. Mary Nagle’s mixed media pendants sit somewhere between jewellery and sculpture, made up of found objects and wire in improvised shapes.
Design Nation
Design Nation are a collective of makers working in a mix of media and include some jewellers.
First time exhibitor Mark Newman showed a series of elegantly geometric rings set with faceted gemstones. The sculptural framework of white gold is created through CAD.
Daphne Krinos’s work is often inspired by London’s streetscape and by the contrast between positive and negative spaces. Her Flow, East London Roundabout and Postive- Negative brooches can also be worn as pendants and are a move into larger, more sculptural pieces.
“I have always liked making brooches which are usually the beginnings of new ideas for me. The four brooches I am showing at Collect can also be adapted to be worn as necklaces. With some of this work I am trying to get away from my ‘comfort zone’ and work on a slightly larger scale. I’m also leaving the surfaces silver white, as opposed to oxidising it which has been a bit of a trademark for me throughout my making career.”
Daphne Krinos for Design Nation
Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust
QEST was set up to support talented and aspiring craftspeople in the UK. The theme of this year’s display was colour, movement and texture.
Sian Evan’s playful jewels use banded agate, carved into layers to pick out hares, octupuses and ants. Her brooches use the ancient form of the fibula, a sort of early safety pin, decorated with loops of metal.
Craft Scotland
Craft Scotland’s mission is to support excellence in Scottish contemporary craft. Their roster of makers included several jewellers, each with their own artistic vision.
Iona Turner’s nature inspired jewellery looked wonderful draped over pieces of driftwood. Her neckpieces are made of seaweed and linen thread, utterly sustainable and local.
Heather McDermott’s pieces are also inspired by the Scottish coastline. She uses silver, stainless steel and pearls to create shapes which are free and organic. The titles of the pieces, drifted, flotsam, caught in the tide, are a direct reference to home island of Skye.
Edinburgh based Liu Qiwei’s brightly coloured jewels have the appeal of an Easter egg with their crimped frames and gold details.
The rounded surfaces are created by mixing animal bone ash with enamel to create an open, stone like substance. The process draws on ideas of sustainability and food waste as well as Buddhist burial practices.
Stephanie Lin Ying Cheong’s Geoanthropology project brought together geologists, anthropologists and environmentalists. She is acutely aware of the importance of sourcing materials, particularly when thinking about the climate emergency, and uses recycled metals, found stones and manufactured materials like faience. Her jewels have interchangeable panels, making them transformable and flexible.
Marianne Anderson and Andrew Lamb both feature precious metals in their work.
Andrew Lamb’s elegant jewels are created through the colour treatment and manipulation of precious metal wire. His square brooches use the subtle colour variations of platinum, titanium and gold, woven into intricate panels to make a modern form of filigree.
Marianne Anderson’s brooches and necklaces were inspired by the architecture and weather of Venice. Through wire-work, etching, enamel and the combination of mother of pearl, gold, red garnets, white pearls and oxidised silver, she showed elegant and poetic jewels.
Siat Gallery
Korea has developed a vibrant contemporary jewellery scene in the last thirty years. Seoul based Siat Gallery showed a range of contemporary Korean artists, combinining photography, lacquer and wood.
Sooyeon Kim’s jewellery combines photography with jewellery to create works which memorialise and respond to urban and pastoral landscapes. For her Zurich necklace, she took photos of the city, sliced and reassembled into shapes as colourful as the wings of a butterfly.
Hee Joo Kim’s brooches and neckpieces are made of brightly enamelled copper in rounded, organic shapes. The electroformed surfaces are worn and distressed to show layers of colours.
Joo Hyung Park’s curling scrolls of wood are covered in layers of lacquer, sometimes peeled back to create delicate patterns. The rich colours and grain of the wood contrasted with colourful lacquer creates objects which are visually satisfying and temptingly tactile.
BR Gallery
China’s new contemporary jewellery is represented by BR Gallery, founded in 2018 to champion Chinese crafts. Four British silversmiths working in a complementary aesthetic were also included – Rebecca de Quin, Adi Toch, David Clarke and Chris Knight.
Ruining Shi necklaces and brooches unite delicate silver shapes, reminiscent of coral with oval of black iron to create elegant organic jewels.
Xiaoli Ning’s silver petals frame a ceramic center to make flower-like and beautifully wearable brooches.
Around the world in jewellery….
Writing about Collect has been a fun way to remember some of the artists I discovered and that I will certainly look out for. Collect is still a great place to discover some of the best new jewellery around, both established makers and up and coming stars.
My review of Memories are made of this shows some of the UK makers who featured at Collect and the work they made for this show at the Sarah Myerscough Gallery in London.
