Inari KIURU – Winter Thoughts
Inari Kiuru wins DIA Jewellery Award (Design Institute of Australia’s Australasian Student Design Awards 2011)
Craft Victoria Member and 2010 Fresh! exhibitor, Inari Kiuru, recently won the Jewellery category in the Design Institute of Australia’s Australasian Student Design Awards 2011 competition.
The RMIT Gold & Silversmithing graduate was nominated for her series Winter thoughts (Between two summers), created during 2010 under the supervision of Nicholas Bastin.
Inari Kiuru writes about the series:
« For this final year (at RMIT) series of jewellery, my research approach was to investigate experimental techniques in steel fabrication, surface texturing, and innovation in material use and generation.
Each piece in this series is a result of an experiment conducted in a small studio environment, using non-toxic, low cost, mostly recyclable materials which have traditionally been reserved for industrial uses. The series is titled Winter thoughts as the colours, clean lines and dark tones emerging reminded me of the bare landscape in my native Finland, during the cold months.
I was especially interested in the qualities of very thin steel (such as shim and wire); alternative uses of industrial components such as plumbing mesh and pre-fabricated safety pins, and the application of liquid enamel which is only a very recent jewellery technique.
For characterising each material I first researched ways for non-toxic etching, and experimented with heat colouration of steel. PUK welding proved to be the best method for joining components as seams generated this way can withstand the heat of the kiln, for firing liquid enamel. Encaustic wax and fusing crystals enhanced the sense of winter elements, snow and ice, combining malleability with the firm metal elements. »
Inari Kiuru is currently undertaking a mentorship with Gordon Tait of design house TAIT and will also be collaborating with Studio Round in 2011 as outcomes of the 2010 Fresh! graduate exhibition.
Inari Kiuru, Selected pieces from Winter thoughts (between two summers) series – mild steel, enamel, glass, brass, encaustic wax, safety pins, steel coated copper mesh – ring
Inari Kiuru, Selected pieces from Winter thoughts
Inari Kiuru – mesh brooch
Inari Kiuru – glass brooch
Inari Kiuru – « Fragile nightmares »