14 May 2022
30 June 2022
Saturday, May 14, 2022
4:00 pm
8:00 pm

The jewellery I make reflects my origin both from the semi desert southern Namibia where I grew up as well as from the European traditions in which I was socialized and educated:

My intimacy with the landscape of my childhood and youth, the sensual immediacy of the natural element, the subtlety of colours and the dramatic spectacle of natural phenomena and the equally grandiose quiet and great distances and apparent timelessness. A landscape in which the human being plays a subordinated role and has left very few traces.

The search for my origin in a culture which existed far away from where I grew up. There, over time and in many countries natural resources had been utilised and knowledge accumulated in order to develop and refine technologies and ideas for creating comfort and benefits for people, for their intellectual and pleasurable pursuits as well as their amusement. A landscape that is cultivated and dominated by man.

My concern in both cases is for the natural object and the artefact.

In my jewellery I use many different materials: rich and poor, natural and artificial. I make no distinction between precious and non-precious. The forms vary from organic to geometric. Texture, pattern and colour play a big role, as does sensuality both in the shapes as well as in the use of material. Many pieces have a distinct erotic quality.
For ideas I draw on natural forms and artefacts of all kind, both historical as well as contemporary. I react on examples of things I admire, I feel a challenge to take up an idea and to reinterpret it. I like symmetry that creates order and draws the focus on a centre to accentuate the wearer and that part of the body the piece is worn. Often pieces are made up of pairs.

The crafting of each piece is of great importance. It is part of the creative thinking process, expressing the human facility as maker, his ability to invent and to do this without fulfilling a functional or existential need.

The jewellery I make is to adorn a person. Its place is the body and its intention is to enhance the wearer. It should be a celebration, to make the wearing of it an occasion. It is also, when not worn, an object for reflection. It is both jewellery and an artefact conceived and made by one person for the enjoyment and gratification of another person.