12 NZ jewellery artists
04-Dec-2022 till 11-02-2023
HS7 final exhibition is at galerie Marzee (curator Marie-José van Hout), Nijmegen, the Netherlands, opening ceremony Su 4 December 2022.
HS7 artist, Mia Straka, represents the HS7 artists and HS organisation at the opening.
Galerie Marzee
Lage Markt 3
6511 VK Nijmegen
The Netherlands
image: Becky Bliss, ‘Play Time 1 & 2, 2022 , Pendants, mild steel, st silver, paint, cord, 160 x 100 x 2mm, Fabricated
I look to the everyday things that accumulate in our drawers, pockets, attics, cupboards and in piles on the street. Observing my everyday environment, I seek out traces of encounters between people and things, gleaning objects and materials that are worn or decayed, with signs of interaction and use. Playing with levels of familiarity in my work, I consider the complex networks in which people and things coexist.
‘Haphazard Joy’ is a body of brooches and rings that tumbled out after I participated in the Handshake workshop run by Estela Saez. Facilitated remotely over five months, this workshop involved intuitive making, joyful sketches, uncomfortable decisions and unfettered material exploration. I decided to continue to push this intuitive process to create this body of work: sketch, fold, colour, question, repeat. I am endlessly thankful for the camaraderie of the wide contemporary jewellery community for enabling this project.
All objects have stories to tell. Stories of origin, culture and meaning. These stories start to add layers as soon as the object is formed, carrying traces of each layer forward as the object’s narrative evolves. I have been inspired by two materials that carry significance for me; a vintage saddle reminds me of my childhood as a pony-mad little girl when all my emotions were controlled by four hooves, the seed pearls come from a broken necklace belonging to my late mother. These are combined with some of my favourite materials to create new layers on top of those that already exist. I aim to create pieces that carry traces of the past fused with the present and the hope of future stories to tell.
Born through material led exploration FORM explores desirable oppositions and the ‘space between’… Liquid – Solid. Organic – Synthetic. Familiar – Unknown.
In playing with the tension between these binaries, and their refusal to exist in a singular state, the work becomes a tangible reflection of the world and the complicated fluidity in which we all exist.
Each visible stitch and twist of wire holds a silent narrative that reflects the value of mending in our present climate. Some of the stitches are functional akin to the role of solder; other mends are as unique as any traditional surface decoration from a silversmith. When discussing the role and value of mending, various opinions are revealed. Economical and climate priorities can begin with small acts of care by anyone. The pieces are titled to highlight varying attitudes encountered through discussions regarding taking the time to stitch and mend.
When I look at a scribble or some type of mark making, be it a splatter on a wall or a printed fabric. I always try and find something there. A face, a creature or an alien? Something always pops out.
I’m interested in how we experience, value and record time. As a social medium adornment has the potential to act as catalyst, conduit and communicator in this realm. I invited friends and associates to document an average day and a perfect day. This data was then digitally rendered as a radar chart, determining the shape of each work in the series. This series honours time and creativity with a collaborative and regenerative approach to adornment making.
I have created a typeface to explore the reductionist notions of “yes” and “no”. My response to these concepts is intended to reflect on the crucial human significance associated with these terms. There are few words that are so definitive, concise, and clear in their meaning – these terms are at the very centre-point of all human communication.
With the act of scoring paper, transforming it through a single action, my work seeks to explore the ways in which a small, minimal actions can be transformative. A sheet of paper becomes a 3-dimensional object with the addition of a fold at the carefully scored line. It now occupies a liminal space – caught between fragility and strength.
It is spring at the moment and with that comes a time of renewal and optimism. It makes me think of colour, and flowers, and going outside. With this in mind, I take beeswax from our backyard hives and mix it with a tree roisin to raise the melting temperature and make it durable. I then form flower shapes of my own making and add pigments and essential oils. I work back into the hardened wax, mark making – ‘I was here’ – sealed in the wax forever.
These works are a tribute to my Berlin based mentor, artist Gabi Schillig. Divided by distance and geographical borders, each of us yet to meet face to face or to set foot in the other’s city. These pieces are works of fiction, fictions of imagined space. Of Berlin, a city of immense history- a history to me known, mis-known and unknown… A city of the imagination, not yet visited.
‘Play Time’ is a new family that plays with colour, forms and gender, while also subverting them through endless combinations to demonstrate the fluidity of youth and boundaryless expression of play. The shapes can be manipulated and joined in any variety of combinations to give them many individual expressions. Anthropomorphising these building blocks for child development and play, which were formalised by the founder of the kindergarten system Friedrich Fröebel in the early 1800s through a series of ‘gifts’, these works play with the shapes from gift#2 – circles, squares and triangles.