I’m not exactly sure why… Maybe because of the scale, or for feeling it in my body, maybe for the constant closeness and intimacy, or because it is a short dialogue, maybe for the overflow of everyday life. This communication, which allows me to find knowledge about something that can’t be described with words, where the verb is a palpable material, has accompanied me for as long as I can remember. As a small child, I used to sleep with a handkerchief pressed against my face.
Now I almost always use gold in the jewels I design, and perhaps this is what is mostly constant since I began working. Focusing on this material demands effort, a real need to accomplish and an urgency that imposes itself over other needs. The metal of the sun, of the eternal, of resistance, of pure relationship with the skin, of what is, in itself, a statement. Maybe it is in this oscillation between that thin cloth, almost falling apart, and the hard, heavy, cold temperature of the metal, that I find the becoming and the purpose of the jewel.
Ana Albuquerque
April, 2025