IMAGES: ( top)design from Cara Smith’s Kinetic Nature collection and Iona Turner wears a design from her The Seaweed Gatherer made using Knotted wrack seaweed
Bottom: Brigita Bivainyte’s wheat and rye designs in the Metamorphozis of Grain collection reflect traditions of her native Lithuania; cast silver quail egg cups with miniature spoon by multi-award winning silversmith, Scott Smith
Final year Silversmithing & Jewellery graduating students at The Glasgow School of Art have unveiled collections conceived and made during lockdown in Graduate Showcase 2021. They are among over 500 graduating students from the acclaimed art school to be showing work on the specially-designed digital platform.
For many of the young designers the time of isolation and their lockdown locations have created the starting point for the creative process, with re-engagement with nature emerging as a major theme.
Ellen Kynoch’s Intangible Mass explores themes of isolation, emotional decay, and the fragility of our minds during a long period of quarantine, whilst for Rui Liu the enforced lockdown due to the pandemic and being socially remote from friends and family were the starting point for her A Dreamer collection -dream states became powerful signifiers of longing and imagining.
Caius Bearder (Bronze Medal winner in Silversmith of Year award at the 2021 Goldsmiths’ Craft and Design Awards 2021) offers designs influenced by the natural forms and man-made insertions on Guernsey’s coastline. Brigita Bivainyte’s wheat and rye designs in the Metamorphozis of Grain collection reflect traditions of her native Lithuania and Yang Miao mines the cultural importance of blossom in Chinese visual and material culture in her collection The plum blossom shadow season.
Alexis Mitchell-Taylor’s work is informed by the study of natural underwater structures and creatures, whilst Cara Smith’s Kinetic Nature takes biomimicry,( innovation inspired by nature), as the focus for her the body of work.
Winner of the Silversmith of Year award at both the 2020 and 2021 Goldsmiths’ Craft and Design Awards, Scott Smith offers hand-held objects that sit comfortably both on the dining table and in the wild Scottish landscapes that shaped their designs and Iona’s Turner’s The Seaweed Gatherer sees the designer literally used knotted wrack seaweed in her pieces.
“This academic year has been like no other in living memory. With the outbreak and continued spread of the Coronavirus, everything shifted into a digital space, with staff and students working from homes and student accommodation, scattered throughout the world, but connected via the internet,” says Anna Gordon, Head of Silversmithing & Jewellery at the GSA. “Our students have shown great determination, continuing to explore and create work through innovation, imagination and tenacity.”
“Our students have created an exceptional body of work which has been unveiled to a global audience on our Graduate Showcase 2021” says Professor Penny Macbeth, Director of The Glasgow School of Art. “The Showcase illustrates powerfully the imagination and inventiveness for which GSA students are renowned and enables people to see how different disciplines are approaching the shared concerns of today’s creative thinkers”
The designs by Silversmithing & Jewellery graduating students can be seen and purchased at:
https://gsashowcase.net/glasgow/school-of-design/silversmithing-jewellery/
For further information on the designs by the 2021 graduating Silversmithing & Jewellery cohort see Notes for Editors
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Lesley Booth
07799414474
@GSofAMedia
Notes for Editors
Winner of a Bronze Medal in the Silversmith of Year award at the 2021 Goldsmiths’ Craft and Design Awards, Caius Bearder presents a collection of designs inspired by the contrasts of the natural coastal forms along the coasts of Guernsey and structures left by its rich and expansive history – from Napoleonic forts to Brutalist German concrete bunkers.
In Metamorphozis of Grain, a collection in Brass, silver, gold plated in 24k. gold, Lithuanian designer Brigita Bivainyte recreates the shapes of wheat, rye, seeds, sun symbols which are all part of the country’s rich cultural history and identity.
In MALVADA (Evil Woman), a collection in Silver, bronze, oxidised copper Nina Candido Charley explores the cinematic and theatrical possibilities of jewellery by generating work that tells a story in a playful and sometimes mischievous manner.
Pui Shan Chu’s Kinetic Engagement collection (Sterling silver, oxidising solution, stainless steel) encourages physical and visual engagement between the wearer and the piece. The brooches replicate
the forms and patterns that characterise mushrooms; circles with lines filled in (the mushroom’s gills) or repeated dots which cover the surface (the mushroom’s pores).
Monica Findlay offers Traces, pieces made of precious and non-precious metals, fallen branches, and cyanotype print which are inspired by a curiosity for generational relics, as evidence of lived experiences
The material presence of the past informs the objects presented in this collection. Curiosity, influence these designs, and each piece aims to evoke a sense of antiquity.
Eilidh Fraser’s collection Patere is made from patinated copper, silver wire, cast bronze fruit peel, cast pomegranate seeds, bronze cast wood shavings and digitally printed faux silk). Colour, experimental patination techniques, and symbolism of food in art history, most importantly the Pomegranate, all feature in Elidih’s body of work.
In Ruins Joanna Graham asks “why do ruins hold such significance for us?” In Scotland, large, derelict estate houses retain glimmers of previous ages of grandeur in their architectural details. Architectural qualities are paralleled in the collection presented in the use of copper and silver together as they contrast not only in colour, but also in value and traditional use, bringing together utility and ornament.
Rachel Hetherington offers Things that have holes in (Jesmonite, silver, bronze, linen thread). Holes as a unifying jewellery form; as a point of connection between objects and the body, and as a focal point of desire, are central to the designs. Her body of work evolved intuitively, as access to visual and material sources were severely restricted over the past year.
In the Colour in Nature collection (anodised aluminium, silver, steel) Niamh Ireland explores relationships between nature, art and society. Capturing ‘endless forms’ (Darwin, 1859), her jewellery designs reflect an interest in decorative styles that are often associated with nineteenth-century interiors: panoramic botanical wallpapers and prints, and heavily bejewelled clothing and costumes, characteristic of historical pageants.
Ellen Kynoch’s Intangible Mass (oxidised copper, aluminium sheet, silver, brass, silver chain) explores themes of isolation, emotional decay, and the fragility of our minds during a long period of quarantine. In a reflective and reactive response to a year or more of detachment from others, her pieces of jewellery demonstrate internal sentiments projected outwards into material. Disconnection from people has been replaced with interconnection to wider nature and these designs are partly motivated by photographic records of daily escapes into natural places, particularly in the winter months
Rui Liu offers a collection in Bbrass, copper, 3D Pen, enamel paint, acrylic, stainless steel and fabric entitled A Dreamer. During the pandemic and the enforced lockdown, socially remote from friends and family, dream states became powerful signifiers of longing and imagining. This series of jewellery designs is the result of an exploration of ‘dream works’, as Freud named them, fabricated by the sub-conscious, heightened in isolation.
In Cyberplay (3D printed PLA, silver and steel) Cara Lowe explores the relationship between the digital and physical realm, and investigates themes of play, technology and cyberspace. For those growing up in the ‘digital age’, childhood memories of play are associated with retro video- game consoles, and it is fascinating to discover how technology can be utilised to initiate play and make pixels on a screen physical. This collection originates from retrofuturism, a form of digital nostalgia, and childhood toys.
Yang Miao offers The plum blossom shadow season (silver, spray colour, enamel colour, A4 paper, xuan paper, resin, copper and Chinese painting colour). Plum blossom (Prunus mume) or méihuā, features prominently in Chinese visual and material culture. Its seasonal displays of blossom are important signifiers of resilience and perseverance, particularly in difficult circumstances. Created during the pandemic, the collection referenced the plum blossom as a marker of optimism for the future.
The Aequor collection (silicone, resin, silver, bronze, fishing line) by Alexis Mitchell-Taylor is informed by a kind of oceanography, the study of natural underwater structures and creatures. According to the Ocean Foundation, the world’s oceans play an important role in mitigating climate change and under- standing more about marine species, the effects of rising temperatures, and the development of deep ocean ecosystems, is integral to achieving a sustainable future environment. The jewellery designs emerge from wider concerns to appreciate these underwater life forms.
In the collection of works by Clare Robb pieces of jewellery as retainers of memory are made meaningful by their collection and gathering of small, discrete, often found, items. Objects trigger memories and transform recollections into palpable experiences, particularly if the artefacts constitute natural materials. I Feel This Place in My Bones (naturally dyed bone, oxidised silver wire and tube with cast plants, patinated brass with sterling silver posts) uses bone, a material that consistently overlooked in contemporary design, despite its popularity in past historical periods and different cultures.
Małgorzata Róg presents Flow, a collection made of tyvek, sterling silver, bronze inspired by the Taoist concept of letting go, relenting to creative forces, to allow these to direct and stimulate process. By following Taoist philosophy, creativity is foregrounded, allowing an expression of forms and impressions to guide this body of work.
In Skirfare (precious and non-precious metals) Sally Shepherd communicates sensitive aesthetic qualities found in everyday experiences of nature, focusing on light, reflection, shadow and gentle movement. The jewellery presented is intended to invoke a feeling of calm, thoughtfulness and an aspect of nostalgia, reflecting human perceptions of nature and the environment.
Cara Smith’s Kinetic Nature (brass, oxidised copper, silver, upcycled milk bottle plastic, nylon thread ) takes biomimicry,( innovation inspired by nature), as the focus of the body of work. The jewellery pieces heighten the presence of nature in the wider land-scape and its relationship to the human body, through texture, form, repetition, transformation and movement. The Caddisfly Larva use materials found around them to make intricate adorning cocoons in order to blend with their surroundings and in some ways personifies the idea of a sustainable existence. During the Covid-19 lockdown, this same ethos has been applied to practice, in giving new life to discarded objects, transforming these into body adornments.
Scott Smith, winner of the Silversmith of Year award at both the 2020 and 2021 Goldsmiths’ Craft and Design Awards, presents Boorachie – Doric for a considered collection of objects or things – made of silver, bronze and reclaimed wood. Exploring the processes of carving, raising, and casting, this assortment of objects questions repetitive markings, rhythmic making and the importance of meditative craft. Using carving skills acquired while in the Scouts and learning to appreciate the abundance of natural material available in rural Aberdeenshire, Scott Smith has created a collection of handheld objects that sit comfortably both on the dining table and in the wild Scottish landscapes that shaped their designs.
For The Seaweed Gatherer Iona Turner has used knotted wrack seaweed (ascophyllum nodosum), brass, recycled silver, hemp cord and bio resin. The process used is one of careful attention to, and immersion in, seaweeds’ wild ecology. By becoming familiar with seaweeds and the ecosystem in which they exist, our relationships to these non-human species develops and helps provide a catalyst for wearable works.