Yu-fang Hu is a jewellery and object maker from Taiwan. She received her bachelor’s degree in literature and linguistics in 2014, and later a BFA in contemporary jewellery in 2018. She is currently doing her MA in jewellery and blacksmithing at EKA. Her interest in making, stems from her background in language studies where she became fascinated by the signified and the signifier and how objects speak.
Ashleigh McCulloch is a jewellery and object designer from South Africa. She is interested in the anthropology of adornment as well as metal forming. She is currently furthering her studies on cultural analysis in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
CIRCULAR RETROSPECTION is a mandala like jewellery installation that encompasses an array of colors, materials and shapes. All the parts of the installation are wearable jewellery, mounted together on a frame creating a colorful painting that calls for closer inspection. Yael Friedman also known as YAYO is a jewellery designer who works with various materials and techniques, started creating these large scale pieces and jewellery installations in the past several years. She addresses the medium of jewellery design in a playful way.
Yael Friedman / YAYO is a jewellery designer working in her self-maintained studio in Israel. In the last 25 years, Friedman has been designing contemporary jewellery. Her work has been displayed in galleries throughout the world.
ON THE EDGE OF THE PRESENT is an exhibition by an Estonian artist Elize Hiiop that focuses on untangling the connections between self-respect, the body and sacredness as well as the pursuit of purity and presence. The contrasting use of color in the large porcelain ornaments on display symbolizes duality. There is good versus bad, high versus low, white versus black, light versus dark… Often what looks good on the outside is hollow on the inside. In order to gain, you have to give. In the end, everything we do leaves a mark – within and around us. When aligned with the depths of one’s nature, the scales balance out, and for a moment light and darkness exist simultaneously within the same space. Understanding dissolves judgements, contrasts and contradictions that flow into one as a slow-flowing river.
Time arrives fleetingly and moves on suddenly – somewhere in between is a moment of the present. It is a space where we can meet ourselves, where the presence of the past and the future merge into the now. Focusing on the present with all our senses expands time and space, creating a seemingly parallel timeline where the world moves at a slower pace. Borders widen and disappear. Thus, in addition to the silence, an artist and a piece of jewellery being created exist in this space. The blurry outlines of ideas are cleansed and condensed hour by hour into material bonds, where every detail has its part and meaning. As one becomes part of the process and a part within the object the distinctions between essence and being, the doer and the task disappear gradually.
Elize Hiiop is an Estonian jewellery artist who graduated from the Estonian Academy of Arts with a degree in jewellery and blacksmithing. She is one of the few jewellery artists in Estonia who has been dedicated to porcelain for so long and with such depth. She has studied glass art for three years and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in ceramics, where her focus is on printing 3D paper porcelain. Elize Hiiop is also a celebratedwatercolor artist. ON THE EDGE OF PRESENT is Elize Hiiop’s first exhibition at A-Gallery.
