Gitte Nygaard - Precious

We met Gitte Nygaard right at the end of our trip and she was, personally, very inspirational. She had a great presence and sense of purpose and passion for her work which wasn't exclusive to jewellery. Gitte Studied installations and incorporates this into her exhibitions. She also participates and drives awareness work around the world. The idea behind her jewellery using the material of binchotan was very interesting. The material is a form of treated charcoal and set onto gold bands. The material which may seem like a waste material is the same that makes up a diamond. The rings play on the perception of value and preciousness, a theme which I am becoming quite interested in. In a social age of recycling and altering perceptions of value as many material resources are running low we must seek and re-think these ideals and perceptions placed upon these mediums. As well as having its purpose as jewellery the material is used as a water cleansing agent and can be utilised in that way.

Aesthetically the shine of the gold and the matt of the binchotan play very coherently with each other, magnifying the differing qualities between the two. The difference in light play on the materials is highlighted by its comparison to the other as the notions of hard and soft as well as light and dark are made present. A harmonious disconnection between the two.

Carlier Makigawa - Structure and Vivid Absense

     

  

Carlier Makigawa, an Australian born artist, creates works with a very constructed aesthetic. They visually relate to frames, scaffolding and cages, and in some way the ideas carried with those visuals. The indication of a frame or cage implies that something lies within; it is a way of displaying or encasing. Without this role being performed the pieces seem hollow and incomplete. Perhaps the ‘frame’ is becoming more important than the ‘art’ within. It wasn’t until I turned to the internet for more information after the gallery visit that I found other works from her 2012 exhibition, ‘nature and structure’,  that lend themselves further to these ideas.

  

The smooth, delicate and natural forms of the coral imply an ephemeral existence, whereas the straight and dense frames suggest a strength and permanence; further emphasizing the idea of the cage. The two provide each other with purpose. In the first images I have attached the works are purely structural, without its frame purpose. Personally I find this absence more intriguing as absence can be very vivid and powerful. It speaks to notions of loss and grief, similar to that of a house framework left behind after a fire has destroyed all that was within. A ghost of a once functional object. Framing and exposing what lies inside is a theme I wish to look into further.

Beppe Kessler - Man Made Stones

The notions of the gemstone and value/preciousness isn't a new one, nor a concluded one. Value and the idea of what is precious is both objective and subjective. There are prices and levels of accessibility that define this value as well as each individual who can bring their own ideals of value onto material/gems/stones. Stones are formed from organic material, created in the earth which we then extract and, more often than not, facet or reform; forcing the natural into the man-made world. These ideas of value are explored by many, one of whom is Beppe Kessler, a Dutch jeweller. Kessler takes fragments of her painted/drawn artworks and turns them into 3D stones through acrylic. Within this made stone lies her artwork which is magnified, and in some cases distorted, and set. These all carry the unique gems, completely constructed by hand, into the realm of preciousness. They become a vessel for more than just monetary value, but of her own work. 

Nautical Museum, Amsterdam. March 27. David Parle                                  

In experiencing Amsterdam, the presence of water is ubiquitous. The cities place in history as a trading power, second to none for a period of half a century, partly makes it the place it is today. This museum was a chance to think about this more deeply. The museum chose to use video and actors to try to animate 17th Century Dutch life. I cringe a little at historical re-enactment and attempts to engage like this just feel a little uncanny, but I soon got used to it. By isolating individuals I suppose a more personal journey can be traced and the life of the anonymous individual is as valuable as the grand narrative. I really enjoyed the surprise of seeing so many early maps. Ptolemys atlas and other Renaissance artifacts from a time when  a great deal of the world was still unknown. The map above of England and Ireland is way off but in the same map (Italian) Sicily is perfect. It opened up for me a line of questioning about knowledge and the quest for what lies beyond the horizon. There were examples of metals such as copper lead and iron taken from wrecks, dozens models of different ships, naval paintings and of course the recreation of a ship itself. I visited the actual location of the sinking of the Batavia in Western Australia, camping on the same coral island that the mutineers and crew lived on. It brought back memories.  The whaling exhibition was also interesting. Valuable for meat products and the oil, the material that filters out plankton in the whales were used to create things such as umbrella frames, walking sticks and corsets. After hearing about Gesine's research on the Dutch still life and ornamental design, I noticed in more detail the different  lithographs with their different motifs and imagery. Naturally these things also have a meaning  and function beneath their mere appearance. Speculating on this provokes the imagination and stimulates for me a useful line of questioning.

This piece was something that really sat with me, it was a piece that I spent a long time looking at and walking to each side of the wall to get a better angles of how the work almost seems to protrude out from itself.

This painting/sculpture by Yves Klein was something that really jumped out at me with both the colours and the form. Its made out of wood, small stones and paint and almost creates this essence of coral.

It also reminds me of different cells viewed under a microscope. The piece speaks about the idea of vastness and its infinite nature.

Thursday March 26th
David P

Lucy Sarneel

Greeted with a very warm welcome, we filled Lucys modest little studio to capacity, munching on biscuits as she told us about her feelings and philosophy on Jewellery. She has decided to fully devote her time to her work now. Small little prototypes and part complete pieces or arranged around the room alongside inspirational objects, a big library and a very compact tool set up. The isolation is more than a little melancholy. I liked the fact that she was working on a kind of visual imbalance, on things that clearly look wrong, but in terms of physics, feel right. I liked also the fact that the ideas were so deeply felt or so abstract that the describing of the work of concepts was difficult. Her response to my question about the piece in Schmuck was layered and complex, an unusual junction for seemingly unrelated lines of enquiry. This is perhaps a really great way to look at the complexity of the symbolic order or indeed the body’s capacity to contain a multiplicity of memories and association ? This suggests to me that there is a truly creative instinct at work.

Gitte Nygaard

Working on a range of scales from large and sculptural to small and intimate, Gittes work is sharply attuned to the urgencies for critical engagement in the everyday. This means a degree of conceptual rigor that challenges the motives that drive a purely aesthetic art form and the sites which it privileges. In an ironic move, the typically utilitarian structure of the playground is made unworkable in order to become an object for contemplation. Both children and adults become tangled in a postmodern folly of sorts. I like that seems a little severe. Serious issues demand that we stop taking things for granted. When she spoke about projects in South Africa and Brazil I was reminded of the lectures by Victor Papenek I attended in 1991 in which he talked entirely about his students projects, all of which based in communities, often neglected or marginal. In Design for the Real World:Human Ecology and Social Change 1971, Papenek write that "Much recent design has satisfied only evanescent wants and desires, while the genuine needs of man have often been neglected by the designer." Gitte also spoke about her needing to be free, not tied up or tied down to the things that can force us into compromises. This kind of fluid and critical voice is precisely the kind of ‘in the field’ pragmatism that our governments need to wake up to and pay attention to.!

Gesine Hackenberg

I had seen work by this artist some time ago so it was nice to visit today. Gesine spoke of her need for some kind of story in connection to making work, in the case of the plate pieces, her grandmothers extensive collecting. She spoke about the historical relevance of Dutch still life history, forming some interesting connections for us with her glass broaches and spatial perspective. She sees all objects as having some kind of relationship to the body. Her jewellery and object pieces all seem to have developed out of the domestic setting. Im looking forward to seeing some Dutch still life tomorrow.