The Scottish Gallery is delighted to present On the Surface by Jacqueline Ryan which is her first major presentation with The Gallery since the seminal exhibition Art Jewellery by Jacqueline Ryan and Giovanni Corvaja twenty years ago. Jacqueline has lived and worked in Italy since 1992 and has been based in Todi, in the Umbrian region of Italy since 2001. Her jewellery is an elegant fusion of English restraint combined with a sophisticated Italian language of structure, articulation and painterly colour. Jacqueline’s work is a homage to the natural world, a poetic combination of colour and form. Her flawless technique incorporates a lifelong study of enamelling and her goldsmithing has a timeless quality that speaks of ancient Etruscan jewellery. Her palette and inspiration is drawn from la dolce vita and the Umbrian landscape surrounding her. Beauty is an essential part of her jewellery making as is her innate understanding of the human form: meticulous models are created and coloured before the final work is made and when worn, her jewellery transforms the wearer.

Jacqueline Ryan has created a unique place in contemporary jewellery underpinned by her signature use of enamel and technical understanding of gold. Her work is represented at the most prestigious art fairs in the world and is sought by private collectors and public collections alike. We are delighted to present her work as part of the Edinburgh Art Festival 2019.

View and purchase a copy of the catalogue to accompany On The Surface here.

Jacqueline Ryan

Born: 1966

Place of Birth: London

Jacqueline Ryan spent time at the Fachhochschule in Dusseldorf and after graduating from the Royal College of Art, London in 1991, she moved to Padua, Italy and shared a workshop with Giovanni Corvaja. Jacqueline works exclusively in gold and precious materials to create organic forms characterised by intricate arrangements of repeated elements, bringing to the field a unique voice grounded in the Italian tradition of architecture and design. Jacqueline now has her own workshop in Todi, Italy.

‘Most of my pieces are preceded by studies derived from living organisms, marine plants, flowers, or seeds and other found objects with the occasional aid of macrophotography that capture some of the finer-scale qualities more difficult to perceive with the naked eye. Repetition, naturally occurring in nature, is a recurrent theme that runs through much of my work as well as movement in which the composite shapes and forms from which my work is constructed move and sway with the body and sometimes jingle and rattle – quietly giving the work a pleasant tactile dimension and interacting with the wearer so that the piece may be animated and alive. I feel that my work has completed its cycle when it has found its wearer.’ – Jacqueline Ryan

Public Collections include:

Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museums, Aberdeen; National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh; The Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, London; Victoria & Albert Museum, London; Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, France; Museum für Künst und Gewerbe,Hamburg, Germany; Museo degli Argenti, Florence, Italy; and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA.

View and purchase a copy of On The Surface here. This is the publication that accompanied Jacqueline’s solo exhibition in August 2019.

On The Surface

Jacqueline Ryan

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