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Objectspace CreativeNZ

The National
12 Mar—1 Apr 2020

 

Due to the cancellation of the 2020 Internationale Handwerksmesse our FRAME exhibition will be hosted at home in New Zealand.

The National is Aotearoa New Zealand’s leading dealer gallery for contemporary jewellery. Established in 2004, The National hosts a diverse annual exhibition schedule that seeks to act as a platform for the ideas and contexts that inform current practice.

At Frame in 2020 The National presents the work of fourteen nationally and internationally recognised jewellers from New Zealand, offering insight into the contemporary themes that are shaping local practice, and building on the growing presence of New Zealand jewellery at Munich Jewellery Week over the last decade.

Kelly
McDonald
1

Kelly McDonald completed a Bachelor of Visual Arts at Sydney College of the Arts (1997). Since 2004 McDonald has been based in Wellington, New Zealand, where she was a tutor in the contemporary jewellery programme at Whitireia New Zealand (2007–2019), a selected participant in several iterations of the Handshake NZ mentoring project (2014–19), and completed a Masters of Visual Art at Massey University (2019).

McDonald takes pleasure in the poetry of simple things, excavating meaning from discarded objects and softening the hardest edges of utilitarian design. Working in series, McDonald draws out the potential for new meanings in our daily encounters with objects, coaxing subtle affinities and delicate perceptions of difference from her rhythmic constellations and typologies of form. By working in this way, McDonald hopes to endow objects with a greater sense of their lived-with experience, and in particular, what they then might reveal about the lives and labours of women.

McDonald’s work has been included in the selection for Schmuck, Munich (2017), and Wunderruma, an international touring exhibition curated by Karl Fritsch and Warwick Freeman. Her recent exhibitions include The Motherlode with Victoria McIntosh, Dark Horse Experiment as part of Radiant Pavilion, Melbourne, Australia (2019), solo exhibition TOOL LOOT & The Mother Lode, The National, Christchurch, New Zealand (2018) and solo installation Portraits at Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary, Auckland, New Zealand (2018).

Kelly McDonald
Condorman, 2020
Steel

Moniek
Schrijer
2

Moniek Schrijer is a contemporary jeweller from Wellington, New Zealand. She holds a Bachelor of Applied Arts (2012), and a Post-Graduate Diploma from Whitireia New Zealand (2013). Since graduating, Schrijer has developed a strong exhibition history and her work has been included in a number of significant national and international exhibitions. Most recently Schrijer’s work was included in the groundbreaking exhibition Non-Stick Nostalgia curated by Kellie Riggs for the Museum of Art and Design in New York (2019) and the national contemporary art survey Sympathetic Resonance held at The Suter Art Gallery in Nelson, New Zealand (2019).

Schrijer’s work is characterised by the skillful adaptation and alteration of materials using a variety of traditional and un­conventional jewellery techniques. Her work is distinct and ingenious, weaving together technical originality, critical reflexivity and humour.

In 2016 Schrijer was awarded a prestigious Herbert Hofmann Preis during Schmuck in Munich for her piece ‘tablet of,’ and was Asia New Zealand Foundation Artist in Residence in Xiamen, China (2017). Her work is held in significant private and public collections in New Zealand and abroad.

Moniek Schrijer
Snail Mail, 2020
Copper, turbo shells,
brass safety pins, cotton

Lisa
Walker
3

Lisa Walker is a contemporary jeweller based in Wellington, New Zealand. She has a Diploma of Craft and Design from Dunedin School of Art (1989), and co-founded Workshop 6 in 1993. Walker studied at the Akadamie der Bildenden Künste, Munich, under Otto Künzli (1995–2001), before establishing her own studio in Munich (2002–2009). She now lives and works in Island Bay, Wellington.

Lisa Walker repurposes the world into a wearable language. Well known for her expansive use of materials, influences and construction techniques, with iconoclastic exuberance Walker poses questions about the possibilities and meaning of wearable objects. Remaining in close conversation with the history—and potential futures—of the medium, Walker’s work is deeply invested in exploring the limits and boundaries of what jewellery can do.

Walker has an extensive international exhibition history and her work is held in many international collections. Her prestigious awards include Foerderpreis der Stadt Muenchen (2007), Francoise van den Bosch Award (2009), and the Arts Laureate Award of the New Zealand Arts Foundation (2015). A major retrospective of her work I want to go to my bedroom but I can’t be bothered opened at Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand, Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand in 2018. A touring version of this exhibition, She wants to go to her bedroom but she can’t be bothered has subsequently toured to RMIT Design Hub, Melbourne, Australia (2019) and will open at Villa Stuck in Munich, Germany in March 2020.

Lisa Walker
Pendant, 2019
Wood, acrylic paint, thread

Craig
McIntosh
4

Craig McIntosh is a contemporary jeweller based in Dunedin, New  Zealand. Introduced to stone carving at an early age, his most recent work has been concerned with the development of technologically assisted methods for fabrication and construction in stone. McIntosh holds a Masters degree with distinction from the Dunedin School of Art (2016) and was the inaugural recipient of Dame Doreen’s Gift (2016); a biennial bestowal from the Blumhardt Foundation that seeks to acknowledge and foster excellence in the field of craft. His first major solo exhibition Craig McIntosh: Ground Work was hosted by Objectspace, Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand (2017). Ground Work marked the summation of McIntosh’s many years of research on the ethics of stone work in the bicultural context of Aotearoa New Zealand.

McIntosh has exhibited extensively in New Zealand and abroad, and was included in the major touring exhibition of jewellery from Aotearoa New Zealand, Wunderruma (2014–2015) curated by Karl Fritsch and Warwick Freeman. His work is held in The Celia Dunlop Collection; Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand; Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum and Musee des Art Decoratifs, France.

Craig McIntosh
Weight of Place No. 2, 2020
Oraka / Colac Bay pakohe

Karl
Fritsch
5

Karl Fritsch is a contemporary jeweller based in Wellington, New Zealand. Born in Sonthofen, Germany, since emigrating to New Zealand in 2009 Fritsch has become an important contributor to the local artistic community. Fritsch has collaborated and developed exhibition projects with a number of local artists including the New Zealand jewellery survey exhibition, Wunderruma, co-curated with New Zealand jeweller, Warwick Freeman.

Over the past three decades Fritsch has developed a signature oeuvre. His experimental stone settings, finger-marked surfaces and visceral humour have shaped a distinctive and unmistakable, Karl-Fritsch-ring-universe. Fritsch has an extensive international exhibition history and his work is held in the collections of many leading international museums including Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Pinakothek of Modern Art, Munich; Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and Te Papa Tongarewa The Museum of New Zealand, Wellington, New Zealand.

Fritsch has lectured and held visiting professorships at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich, the Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam; the University of the Arts, Philadelphia; Rhode Island School of Design, Providence; New York University, New York, and the Royal College of Art in London. He is currently adjunct professor at the RMIT University Melbourne.

Karl Fritsch
Rings, 2020
Silver, cubic zirconia,
glass, jade, onyx, amber,
aquamarine, obsidian,
fluorite, synthetic stones

Vanessa
Arthur
6

Vanessa Arthur is a contemporary jeweller and object-maker based in the Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand. Arthur completed a Bachelor of Applied Arts at Whitireia New Zealand (2011) receiving the Fingers Graduate Award (2011) on the completion of her degree. Since graduating Arthur has been selected as an artist in residence at Toi Pōneke Arts Centre, Wellington (2012), and as a participant in the Handshake2 project mentored by David Neale (2013–15). Most recently Arthur was again selected to participate in Handshake5 (2019–2020) led by group coach Roseanne Bartley, culminating in a group exhibition in which Arthur responded to works of Onno Boekhoudt, held in the CODA Collection, The Netherlands.

Arthur’s work draws on the mark-making and detritus of urban environments and everyday life. Inspired by the incidental abstractions of contemporary streetscapes and found industrial forms, Arthur works with a range of precious and semi-precious metals to form her own idiosyncratic, gesture-driven language.

Arthur has exhibited throughout New Zealand and internationally. Recent exhibitions include EXPOSE, Cagnes-sur-Mer, France (2017), Handshake Alumni and Einsaulensaal, Munich Residenz Palace, Munich (2016). Her solo exhibition To be everywhere at once yet nowhere at all, was hosted by The National in 2018.

Vanessa Arthur
Wall Scrawl Earrings, 2020
Sterling silver, oxidised, gold plated

Warwick
Freeman
7

Warwick Freeman is a leading contemporary jeweller from Auckland, New Zealand. He has an extensive international exhibition history and is represented in many major public and private collections in New Zealand and around the world including Te Papa Tongarewa The Museum of New Zealand, Wellington; Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Victoria and Albert, London; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; LACMA, Los Angeles; Houston Museum of Fine Arts; and the Pinokothek der Moderne, Munich.

Freeman is highly regarded for his elegant use of local materials and for his accomplished work in stone. Throughout his career, Freeman has made a significant contribution to the development of contemporary jewellery in New Zealand, and to the visibility of a critically engaged local vernacular in the crafts. The simplicity of Freeman’s forms conceal a wealth of cultural reference points, from modernism to contemporary pop-culture, from literature to tools, and from familiar everyday domestic objects to the symbolic languages through which we grasp the cosmos. Seen in this light, Freeman’s work of the past five decades might be read as a geographically and socio-politically specific idiom, yet his intelligent humour and deft touch have found universal appeal.

A prominent early member of Auckland jewellery co-operative, Fingers, and local jewellery collective, Details, Freeman became the inaugural Chair of Objectspace, Auckland in 2004. Freeman is a Laureate of the Francoise van den Bosch Foundation, Amsterdam and the New Zealand Arts Foundation.

Warwick Freeman
Red & Black Bird, 2019
Jasper, basalt, silver

Jane
Dodd
8

Jane Dodd is a contemporary jeweller based in Dunedin, New Zealand. She holds a Bachelor of Visual Arts from University of Otago (1984) and a Diploma of Jewellery Design from Unitec, Auckland (1994). From 1995 to 2009 she was a member of Workshop 6, a renowned shared jewellery studio in Kingsland, Auckland.

Dodd embraces the technical virtuosity of traditional European craftwork, and her loosely narrative-based work has in recent years pivoted around the portrayal of animals. Working with the subtext of human impact and interspecies interaction, Dodd has explored issues of extinction and infestation, cruelty and conflict. In her most recent works, Dodd asserts the place of the human species within the animal world; in the taxonomic Order of Primates. Thus, in Dodd’s work, character and narrative are afforded to humans, pre-human hominids and other fellow simians alike.

Dodd exhibits internationally and her work is held in many private and public collections including Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand, The Dowse Art Museum; Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, France; Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum; Art Gallery of South Australia. In 2020 The Dowse Art Museum, Wellington, New Zealand will host a major solo exhibition of Dodd’s work.

Jane Dodd
Crabby Nonsense, 2020
Dyed bone, silver
(left)

Jane Dodd
Parekareka III
, 2020
Dyed bone, silver
(right)

Octavia
Cook
9

Octavia Cook is a contemporary jeweler based in Dunedin, New Zealand. She holds a Bachelor of Design in Jewellery from Unitec, Auckland (1999) and her work has been exhibited extensively in public and dealer galleries throughout New Zealand and internationally. In 2011 she was included in the official selection for Schmuck, Munich, Germany. Cook’s work is held in numerous public and private collections in New Zealand and internationally, including Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum, Auckland, New Zealand, Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand, Wellington, New Zealand; Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth, New Zealand; Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, Middlesbrough, England; and the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, USA. A major survey of her work, Dynasty: Works by Octavia Cook was curated by The Dowse in 2012.

Octavia Cook
Cook to Cocoa, 2012
Acrylic, silver, wood

Shelley
Norton
10

Shelley Norton is a contemporary jeweller based in Auckland, New Zealand. She holds a Bachelor of Visual Arts from Auckland University (2002), and has exhibited extensively over a twenty-
year period. Major group exhibitions include Wunderruma, an inter­national touring exhibition curated by Karl Fritsch and Warwick Freeman; Entfesself-Schmuckf ohne Grenzen, Zurich (2012); and Jewellery Unleashed, Modern Art Arnhem, The Netherlands (2011). Shelley’s work is held in the collections of Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland Museum, The Dowse Art Museum, Wellington, and in numerous private collections internationally.

Shelley Norton
Brooches, 2020
Deconstructed, knitted
and melted plastic shopping
bags, sterling silver

Debbie
Adamson
11

Debbie Adamson is a contemporary jeweller based in Dunedin, New Zealand. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Dunedin School of Art (2010) and after graduation took up a workshop apprenticeship in the studio of Master Goldsmith Kobi Bosshard (2012–2014). For the past 10 years Adamson has exhibited widely, both in solo and group shows, exhibiting regularly at Fingers Contemporary Jewellery, in Auckland New Zealand. She was selected as a participant for Handshake1, mentored by Hanna Hedman, and Handshake3 with group coach Sian van Dyk. Her work in held in the collection of The Dowse Art Museum.

Debbie Adamson
Galvanised Twist Necklace, 2020
Galvanised steel, nylon

Areta
Wilkinson
12

Areta Wilkinson (Kāi Tahu) is an artist based in Oxford, New Zealand. Wilkinson’s practice engages with Māori philosophies and knowledge unique to Aotearoa New Zealand. Recent exhibitions include; The 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Queensland Art Gallery of Modern Art (GAGOMA), Brisbane, AU (2018); Cult, curated by Current Obsession at the Stedelijk Museum Hertogenbosch, (2016–2017); and Kōrero Mai Kōrero Atu at Auckland Museum, Auckland (2016). Wilkinson holds a PhD in Creative Arts from Massey University Te Pūtahi-a-Toi School of Māori Studies. Her work is well represented in New Zealand collections including Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum and Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand, Wellington.

Areta Wilkinson
Hei Tupa, 2019
Oxidised sterling silver,
fine silver

Elfi
Spiewack
13

Elfi Spiewack is a contemporary jeweller based in Christchurch, New Zealand. Born in Germany, Spiewack completed a goldsmith apprenticeship and trained at the University College of Design in Pforzheim (1996). She has been based in New Zealand since 1999, and has exhibited in New Zealand, Germany, Australia, the Nether­­lands and the USA. Her major solo exhibition In Splendour Moot, Adornment Re-framed toured through public galleries in New Zealand throughout 2017–19.

Elfi Spiewack
Necklace, 2020
Oxidised sterling silver,
bone, rope

Becky
Bliss
14

Becky Bliss is a contemporary jeweller based in Wellington, New Zealand. Since graduating with a Bachelor of Applied Arts from Whitreia New Zealand (2010), Bliss has been a selected participant in Handshake1 with mentor Fabrizio Tridenti, Handshake3, Handshake5 and has contributed to alumni exhibitions held in Australia, Germany, Thailand and Sweden. Bliss has previously been selected for Schmuck (2015), and has again been selected for the forthcoming edition in 2020. A trained graphic designer, Bliss has worked with various makers and editors to develop several books on contemporary jewellery, including publications for Handshake, Wunderruma, Karl Fritsch and Lisa Walker. Her work is held in the public collections of Te Papa Tongarewa The Museum of New Zealand and The Dowse Art Museum.

Becky Bliss
Meccano Brooch, 2020
Sterling silver, paint