This February to complement A Considered Place – The Edit we present Considered Jewellery, featuring works from some of the finest contemporary jewellers working in the UK today whose work is often a response to the pattern, texture and processes found in textiles.
The exhibition features work from Susan Cross, Dorothy Hogg and David Poston and also features tiny faceted glass pins from Andrea Walsh.
As a jeweller I aim to explore the sensuality of the body through the tactility of materials. My work is fuelled by a deeply rooted interest in textiles, both in terms of borrowed techniques and the range of visual references. More recently plant forms have inspired new ways of construction and a wider use of colour through the use of semi-precious stones.
Susan Cross graduated from Middlesex Polytechnic University in 1986, setting up her first studio in London before relocating to Edinburgh in 1989. Susan has been a part-time lecturer in the Jewellery & Silversmithing department at Edinburgh College of Art since this time and in 2008 was awarded a Readership following her success in the Jerwood Applied Arts Award for Jewellery in 2007. Alongside her teaching she has continued to develop her work exhibiting both nationally and internationally. Susan has also been invited to initiate projects and workshops in Finland, India, New Zealand & South Korea and awarded a travel bursary by the Scottish Arts Council to study Japanese textiles.
Public Collections include:
V&A Museum, London; V&A Museum, Dundee; National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh; Crafts Council, London; The Goldsmiths’ Company, London; Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery; Edinburgh Royal Infirmary; Alice & Louis Koch Collection, Switzerland; Spencer Museum of Art, USA; Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, USA.
Dorothy Hogg studied at both Glasgow School of Art and the Royal College of Art and was Head of Jewellery & Silversmithing at Edinburgh College of Art from 1985 until 2007.
In 2001 she was awarded an MBE for services to jewellery and silversmithing and in 2005 won the Brilliantly Birmingham Jewellery Award; awarded to the jeweller who has made the greatest contribution to the world of designer-maker jewellery. Dorothy Hogg passed away on the 4th April 2022. She was one of The Scottish Gallery’s favourite contemporary jewellers and will be greatly missed.
Public Collections include: National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh; Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums; Victoria & Albert Museum, London; Museum of Arts and Design, New York; Goldsmiths’ Company London; Crafts Council, London; Birmingham Art Gallery and Museum; Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art; Musee Des Beaux Arts, Montreal, Canada.
David Poston is a significant senior visual artist who specialises in jewellery and objects.
Born to British parents in Moscow, Russia in 1948 he was educated in the United Kingdom and graduated from the jewellery design course at Hornsey College of Art. David worked as an artist-jeweller using mainly non-precious metals and other materials from 1970 until 1984, and then again from 2000 until the present day. In between, he has worked to assist in the development of sustainable livelihoods in twelve different African countries. He has contributed inventions through medical technology research, introduced a three-dimensional haptic interface to potential developers in the UK, was involved internationally in several high-tech start-up companies and spent three years as leader of the Jewellery and Silversmithing programme at Loughborough University. David currently works from his studio in Suffolk.
Public Collections include:
Victoria & Albert Museum, London; Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; National Gallery, Melbourne, Australia; National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh; Shipley Art Gallery & Museum, Tyne & Wear
Andrea lives and works in Edinburgh and set up her studio in 2005 following the completion of a degree in fine art, and postgraduate study in glass, at Edinburgh College of Art. She has since received invaluable support from the Crafts Council (UK) and Creative Scotland, enabling the continued creative development of her practice that pushes the boundaries of her chosen materials – ceramics and glass. A significant contribution to her practice has been the award of residencies including the ‘Artist Into Industry Residency’ through the British Ceramics Biennial – a project with the ‘Minton’ brand based at the Wedgwood ceramics factory in Stoke-on-Trent (UK), which facilitated learning directly from master craftsmen, and allowed privileged access to historical archives. This opportunity continues to influence her practice to the present day. Andrea has established a growing exhibition profile in the UK and internationally. Her work has been shortlisted for the British Ceramics Biennial Award on three occasions, purchased for major public collections including the Victoria and Albert Museum and National Museums Scotland, and in 2017 was one of twelve finalists in the BBC Radio 4/V&A/Crafts Council ‘Woman’s Hour Craft Prize’.
‘My work is an exploration of the box and vessel form, through which I am interested in ideas of containment, materiality, preciousness and value. Working with glass in combination with fine bone china, I seek to celebrate their shared material qualities including purity and translucency and am influenced by their alchemic nature and rich historical associations. Contained Boxes are my most recent series of work. In each piece the vessel is kiln cast in glass, forming an individual vitrine, which cradles a small ceramic box within. Intimate in scale, the work embraces tactile investigation due to it’s form, size and proportion and evokes a response akin to jewellery, eliciting the desire to hold and to cherish. Each single work in this series results in an entirely unique study of interior and exterior, their direct relationship, and captures a subtle, timeless presence. The opacity of the container can conceal, or if translucent can veil, the contained box held within, which is revealed only when the viewer is drawn closely to look inside from above. Therefore the display of these pieces is integral to the work, where differences and relationships between the pieces can be experienced, and yet where they are also afforded the space to breathe.’ – Andrea Walsh, 2018.
Struggling to find that perfect gift? We have the solution! A Scottish Gallery Gift Voucher is the perfect gift for friends, family, customers and colleagues.
Own Art is a national initiative that makes buying contemporary art and craft affordable by providing interest-free credit for the purchase of original work.