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HANDSHAKE 4

 

 

Keri-Mei Zagrobelna

I use jewellery as my language and speak through my hands. My eyes hear my thoughts and translate.

I grew up in Wellington and graduated from Whitireia with a BaPPa in visual arts. I come from a background entwined in museums and art, worlds in which both my grandmother and mother worked. My grandfather was also a carver so I was very lucky. My work aesthetic represents the connectedness to my immediate environment and upbringing. It speaks of cultural communication and interpersonal relationships through the language of jewellery.

Jewellery making is a medium by which I can communicate my heritage to both local and global audiences. I seek to nurture and encourage others through my work, by way of my actions and choices as an artist.

I work in a broad range of materials but tend to shift towards Pounamu, stone, bone and metal.

This could be a direct influence from my heritage but I am currently exploring other mediums in which to demonstrate and share my experience and view on our world.

I enjoy not only creating pieces that can be worn on a daily basis as a treasure or a taonga but am also learning to engage into the exploration of other creative forms such as sculpture, installation, research and photography.

Zine me up Scotty!

After busy weeks of online skype meetings with the team, chatting with my mentor, balancing my art practice with my home life work commitments I am finally in Auckland and getting ready for what is going to be our final public Handshake4 exhibition. I am fulled with...

Poria for Polarities

  Reflecting on my experimenting, research and artistic practice for our Polarities exhibition I think that my artist statement best sums up some of the thoughts that are emerging and reasons to why I have chosen to undertake exploring this body of work with Kaka...

“The Object’s Lament”

  I am Naked in front of a room full of strangers left alone @ night the Ruru comforts me whispering old laments from my ancestors Through the pained glass I seeing RISING... Hine Pae Kura She Spreads and Spits Sweet dew drops across the thighs and breast of our...

Words for Philip….

Polarity The property of having poles or being polar. "it exhibits polarity when presented to a magnetic needle" the relative orientation of poles; the direction of a magnetic or electric field. plural noun: polarities "the magnetic field peaks in strength immediately...

a dusty bookshelf and a bus ride

I have been a bit quiet on this blog and it is only to my dismay that I found a whole set of blog entries that I had compiled in my google docs but alas forgot to publish… was it a secret anxiety that stopped me from posting these thoughts, revelations and rants?...

Mahuru

Mahuru a.k.a September was a very busy month for me indeed.I was honored enough to be funded by Creative New Zealand to be able to travel to Melbourne for Radiant Pavilion which is a bi-annual contemporary jewelry festival and attend the MakingOUT Symposium,...

“Don’t focus too much on…… jewellery”

"Don’t focus too much on jewellery" I hear you say? But isn’t this a blog about contemporary jewellery? Yes. It is, but there is so much more involved with “contemporary jewellery” the concepts, materials, movements and happenings around this subject, and hey… it’s ok...

Jewellery, Matariki and Winter

 Recently, Wellington the capital city of New Zealand has been humming with Matariki celebrations.For those that do not know what Matariki is, it is the celebration of the Pleiades constellation in the southern pacific and marks the beginning of our Māori new year.The...

Just a wee bit of first chats

After much difficulty trying to get my skype to work me and Jasmin decided that we would video chat over social media instead.It never ceases to amaze me how you can communicate and have real time conversations with somebody halfway across the world in another time...