Gentle & Mighty COLLECTION

In mid-2019 I started to be interested in how colourlessness affects the perception of objects. How stripping colour from things helps reveal their actual shapes, textures, glossiness, study shades and lighting.

St. Mary Woolnoth. Steve Cadman

Jakob Auer, Apollo und Daphne, c. 1688/90, ivory, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

The Hermitage, St. Petersburg. Personal archive

David Michelangelo. ferhatturkmenoglu

I never knew how to work with colour in jewelry. Always felt like a more graphic person. So it felt logical to go see how people play with other features of their creations when they choose to get rid of the colour.

Angela Schwer

Angela Schwer

Angela Schwer

Angela Schwer

Kose Milano

Anca Gray

Ron Mueck

Iris Van Herpen

I would love to tell you a touching story about how I came from this to an actual idea of the collection (and sometimes there is a story) but in reality inspiration and be triggered by smallest things. In August 2019, I saw these ceramic boxes by Anna Levova, and wrote her right away asking if she can make such an acorn in about 15 mm size.

I got to work on this collection in early 2020, finishing it right before lockdown that happened to us in late March. I was very lucky to get in time with all that experimenting that this collection was for me.

And these acorns dictated everything else. I thought of oak trees, so strong and old they almost seem everlasting. I thought how strong is their association with something masculine. When you see an oak grove, it almost seems like a family of men, with farthers giving birth to sons. Can’t they be… feminine? Gentle?

With some pieces, I made placticine prototypes to understand the shape before carving. With others, I could go straight on. It's wonderful how much skill this work gave me: I have an early model of Gentle&Mighty earrings no. 1, and the final version, both cast in brass, and they look as if years passed between when they were made.