COUP de COEUR pour les « délices de bouche » de Kazumi NAGANO
…. On dirait de petites meringues, délicates, poétiques, fragiles, des « délices de bouche » …. mais ce sont « juste » des délices de bijoux ….. dont on imagine le doux croquant, le moelleux ……….
« Kazumi Nagano is a Japanese artist informed by ancient tradition and drawn to contemporary form. Her pieces mark a beautiful reinterpretation. She uses a technique called “Nahanga” to paint her jewelry using rock pigments to achieve incredibly delicate coloration. She also weaves strands of gold, silver, silk, nylon and paper thread together creating 3 dimensional shapes with an incredible suppleness. I want to reach out and touch them » (Craft & Culture)
« As if capturing the beauty of Japanese Nihonga paintings into her woven jewellery, epitomised by the moon, flowers, and subtleties of snow, it can be said that Kazumi Nagano (1946- ) is one of the leading Japanese artists in her field. Contemporary jewellery is currently one of the hotly-collected mediums in applied arts by museums and collectors, and Nagano’s works, which embody conceptual, structural and creative elegance, have been collected by the Victoria & Albert Museum and a multitude of various important private collections in recent years. Striking is the fact that Nagano had only delved into the world of jewellery after reaching the age of 50. Instead, she was formally educated as a Nihonga painter. Yet, as if painting the aesthetics of traditional Japan into her three-dimensional pieces, her seductive silhouettes are emblematic of the romanticism inherently found in the two-dimensional world of Japanese painting, of subtle flowers blowing in the wind, with reverence to the warmth of not the sun but of moonlight. Serenity, not dynamism, are the hallmarks of Nagano’s luscious forms made from materials such as gold and silver threads, even ‘bamboo tape,’ combined with the elasticity of the contemporary material that is nylon. » (Yukufu Gallery)
Kazumi Nagano - bamboo & nylon brooch (at Schmuck 2012)
Kazumi Nagano – brooch 2011 – bamboo, nylon, gold (at Schmuck 2012) 110x900x50mm
Kazumi Nagano - bamboo & nylon brooch 2013
Kazumi Nagano – Brooch 2014 bamboo tape, nylon thread, gold18 
Kazumi Nagano – Brooch 2013
Kazumi Nagano - works are for Collect2013 (Yufuku Gallery at Saatch Gallery,London, 10th May 2013 –13th May)
