EXPO ‘Bequeath’ – e.g.etal, Melbourne (AU) – 22 Oct.-3 Nov. 2012

Bequeath – Julia de Ville – at e.g.etal

Rings are a deeply personal form of adornment. Jewellery from the Victorian era, known for its carefully considered embellishment and bold use of gemstones, typifies the potential for beautiful objects to take on significant personal meaning. This is jewellery that traces romantic love and loss, climbing to the heights of devotion and flirting poetically with the depths of despair. …….

« Julia’s work is characterised by the use of symbols and motifs from past eras. Her precious rings combine found settings from antique jewellery. Over several years, Julia has sourced antique jewellery and gemstones—their original owners long since deceased—waiting patiently for the right combination to form a new creation in her mind and then at her workbench. Through conceptual consideration and traditional and contemporary techniques she appropriates and reconfigures older pieces to form a new design.
Rings are a deeply personal form of adornment. Jewellery from the Victorian era, known for its carefully considered embellishment and bold use of gemstones, typifies the potential for beautiful objects to take on significant personal meaning. This is jewellery that traces romantic love and loss, climbing to the heights of devotion and flirting poetically with the depths of despair. The symmetry and order of the Victorian aesthetic is here transcended in the form of jewellery that combines settings and gems to create something that feels familiar but is post modern and intuitive in its approach to form and colour.
As the title of the exhibition implies, this work is about the potential for life to continue, even as we don’t. Each ring has the appearance of a collection of family heirlooms that have been melted gracefully into one piece. Julia herself says, “I’m constantly in awe of jewellery’s capacity to carry meaning beyond our own lives. For example, my mother is going to be turned into a diamond when she dies and I will make her into a ring for myself. Thus her life, in some form, continues…”
This will be Julia’s first solo jewellery exhibition in over five years. In the meantime she has been exhibiting her sculptural taxidermy work. This includes having pieces included in the collection at MONA, as well as her most recent solo exhibition, ‘Sarcophagus’, at Sophie Gannon Gallery in August 2012. »

Julia Deville  Rings: Untitled 2012  White gold, sapphires, diamonds

Julia Deville Bequeath Ring

e.g.etal
167 Flinders Lane & 185 Little Collins Street
3000 VIC – Melbourne
Australia
Telephone: [phone]

EXPO ‘A found thing (the consolation of consolations)’ – e.g.etal, Victoria (AU) – 17-29 Sept. 2012

a found thing (the consolation of consolations)

A solo exhibition by Katherine Bowman…    Monday 17 September – Saturday 29 September    Opening: Thursday 20 September, 6pm – 8pm at e.g.etal

The walls of Katherine Bowman’s studio are lined with dozens of sketchbooks. These books contain decades’ worth of drawings as well as ephemera, images found and clipped from magazines, swathes of watercolour and daubs of glitter, poetry collected and thoughts recorded, ideas pursued and concepts expressed. These books are the documentation of a life of collecting, a life of looking and exploring ways of seeing the world—a life of seeking to understand. For Katherine, this journey finds expression in art and in making. a found thing (the consolation of consolations), Katherine’s first solo exhibition of jewellery in Melbourne in five years, is the articulation of her journey thus far…
We form relationships with the objects we collect. These relationships define and add meaning to our lives. Over time, the jewellery that we collect comes to define who we are and our life’s experiences: its milestones and its fleeting moments, our thoughts and our feelings and our tastes. The rings, earrings, pendants and works on paper in this exhibition express an honesty of process, form and material. They are carefully brought into being to carry meanings both expressed and inexpressible. It is in seeing and in touching these works that we are taken in by them. A tactile relationship is formed and in this the role of the maker becomes immediately but also subtly evident.
a found thing (the consolation of consolations) is made up of seven different bodies of work. Each body explores a slightly different aesthetic, creating the impression of having been collected at different times and from different places; colour, texture and form drawing them all together even as they stand apart.
For Katherine this work is the culmination of years of research and experience. It is about a deep love of making. This work is the work of a collector and a maker and it is about the relationship between these two elements of Katherine’s art.

 Katherine BOWMAN  sketches

 

e.g.etal Gallery
167 Flinders Lane, Melbourne
Victoria, 3000 Australia

EXPO ‘Vicki Mason: Botanical Fictions’ – e.g.etal, Melbourne (Australia) 31 Oct.-15 Nov. 2011

“Plants have the potential to tell stories about our lives and the societies we live in.”

e.g.etal presents a new series of pieces by Melbourne-based jeweller, Vicki Mason.

Vicki Mason Tinkering with nature brooches – Powdercoated brass, PVC, thread 

Vicki Mason – brooches: The entangled garden 2011 – Powder coated brass, copper and sterling silver, hand-dyed PVC, PVC, polyester, rayon, nylon and viscose thread, cotton interfacing – photography: Johannes Kuhnen

Vicki is enthralled by plants as subject matter and the potential they have to tell stories about our lives and the societies we live in. Her new series of works, ‘Botanical Fictions’, feature an ornamental vocabulary of plant-based forms that Vicki developed over the period of her recent study.

The works combine mixtures of materials and processes. Remnant plastics from the stationery industry are used alongside thread and various metals to create jewellery. Low-tech domestic craft processes and various textile and metal processes/techniques (both hand-fabrication and industrial processes) have been mixed in this series. The traditionally clear identities and conceptual frameworks often assigned to these materials or techniques are blurred and questioned.

“The decorative shapes and motifs created were inspired by my research into indigenous plants found in Australian colonial jewellery and silversmithing objects,” says Vicki. “Furthermore, plant motifs used on Mason’s ironstone china wares (more specifically chinoiserie motifs) and the forms of local endemic plants from the south-east of Melbourne where I currently live, are also explored in the series.”

For Vicki, melding these three very different strands of research was a way of embracing the decorative potential of plant forms of Australian and imported origin in order to combine them to tell a personal story. It is a story that speaks to ideas associated with migration, complexity, abundance, diversity, identity, hybridity and belonging.

“Vicki’s work always displays a unique sense of beauty and innovation,” says Emma Goodsir, director of e.g.etal. “Materials, form, colour and texture combine in a charming way to create beautiful work that is conceptually engaging and technically daring.”

Vicki Mason brooch

Vicki Mason ring ‘Xanthorrhoea’ – Hand-dyed PVC, powder coated brass and silver

Vicki Mason brooches

 

 

e.g.etal
167 Flinders Lane & 185 Little Collins Street
3000 VIC – Melbourne
Australia
Telephone: [phone]

website: www.egetal.com.au
mail: [e-mail]

EXPO ‘Joungmee Do: Longevity’ – e.g.etal, Melbourne (AU) – 14 Juin-2 Juill. 2011

In Korean folklore, there are ten symbols of longevity: the sun, mountains, clouds, rock, water, cranes, tortoises, deer, pine tree and immortals’ fungus (pullocho). These symbols are representative of man’s deep desire for happiness in the present world and appear in folk paintings as decorative motifs.

Longevity is Melbourne-based Joungmee Do’s response to her exploration of Korean folklore. Her reworking of these auspicious symbols comes in the form of necklaces and brooches. Joungmee’s intricately detailed pieces employ traditional Korean metal inlay techniques (or iybsa) as well as complex etching and metal colouring. The result is work that links contemporary expression with the traditional Korean spiritual and symbolic world.

Joungmee Do – neckpiece: Pine tree 2011Stainless steel, steel, fine silver, pure gold, sterling silver

Joungmee Do – Brooch -  steel,  fine silver, pure gold

Joungmee Do - Peony neckpiece - Steel, fine silver

Joungmee Do – Brooch -  Steel, fine silver, pure gold

Gold inlayed floral brooch – Steel, pure gold, fine silver

Joungmee Do – Bird with Blossom brooch – Fine silver, steel

Joungmee Do 

Joungmee Do – Floral & bird pendant – silver 

Joungmee Do – bird brooch

Joungmee Do – turtle brooch

Joung Mee Do’s whimsical pieces are created using iybsa: a traditional Korean inlay technique. She also uses etching and traditional metal colouring techniques to incorporate Korean textile patterns, adding fine texture to the surface of each piece 

 

 

e.g.etal
167 Flinders Lane & 185 Little Collins Street
3000 VIC – Melbourne
Australia
Telephone: [phone]
website: www.egetal.com.au
mail: [e-mail]