Artist of the month
'Inspired by the history of ornamental forms, my jewellery presents my exploration of traditional decoration and strives to highlight its beauty, meaning and importance. I am interested in the human fascination with adornment across all areas of the decorative arts - not only through ornate motifs and details but also through the balance and structure of pattern.
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I layer these elements into my pieces, both visually and narratively, creating, for example, brooches composed of pierced silhouettes of oxidised silver, systematically arranged and intersected by grids of red garnets, white pearls and 18ct gold. |
The tensions between the order of the grid and the disorder of the pattern, the structural and the florid, create intriguing contrasts. I love to embrace this and order the potential chaos of ornament but at the same time enjoy the process of taking a pattern and completely stripping it down into its components, randomly scattering them to create bold fragmented images on an intricate scale.
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In my Fragments of Ornament series I looked at wrought iron work. I took structured gates and railings and extracting small segments scattered them randomly around long necklaces or abstracted sections and used them in a scale that works in an interesting way against the human form. |
Research is an important part of my work. I enjoy trawling through archives of patterns, architectural details and ornamental forms, and studying theories embedded in ornament’s history.
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My mission is to purposefully engage with the past, with cultural history and iconography and highlight the importance of ornament in a modern context.
To show an appreciation of the value of ornament without merely mimicking or replicating but by interpreting it in a fresh way into pieces of wearable jewellery. |
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My interest is rooted in how we learn and draw from the past and return frequently to design of historic and symbolic significance. Far from superfluous, ornament has historically always had meaning had its own vocabulary and I try to engage with this through my work.
 
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