A solo exhibition by jeweller Sim Luttin at Pieces of Eight

Pieces of Eight Gallery presents The Temporary Nature of Things, an exquisite solo exhibition by jeweller Sim Luttin. Creating a piece of jewellery each day for one year, Luttin’s ‘3D-diary’ is a collection of work that has come to embody contemplations on life, time, and indeed, temporality. The exhibition opens on September 16 and runs until October 11, 2008. View Video

Musing over Luttin’s jewellery and objects is like taking a long stroll and stumbling upon unexpected discoveries along the way. There is both a refined quality and something more organic and spontaneous to Luttin’s work. In all cases, each piece capture’s the unpredictability of contemplations made in a single day.

Creating a piece a day over one year was part of Luttin’s MFA (Metalsmithing and Jewellery Design) completed at Indiana University, USA, 2008. Showing for the first time in Australia The Temporary Nature of Things displays a selection of the work taken from the larger body created. The overall collection was exhibited at SoFA Gallery, Indiana, USA in April, 2008.

Catalogue text by Randy Long and Nicole Jacquard

Of the exhibition, Sim Luttin says; “My current project explores the theme The Temporary Nature of Things, which investigates notions of beauty, nostalga, landscape, impermanence, and passing time. I am captivated by the deterioration of memory and how this is nostagically represented through minaiture objects, and also in terms of our emotional, physical and tactile interaction as a maker, wearer and viewer of the form.

The jewelry and objects reflect forms that are reminiscent of nature. They are about finding the beauty and poetry in the everyday…about discovering and noticing the little things that might otherwise pass you by…they are tiny observations that might otherwise go unnoticed. Each form draws the viewer in to look more closely at the detail and repetition contained within the object. In a sense, I am hoping to entice those who don’t take objects at face value, to take the time to investigate each piece; the undulating surface texture on each unit – the space it occupies and simultaneously contains.

Before studying at Bloomington, Luttin earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in gold and silversmithing at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, and spent two years in Adelaide as a Design Associate at The Jam Factory.. Nicole Jacquard — her former teacher in Melbourne, now an assistant professor in metalsmithing and jewelry design at IU Bloomington — recruited her to Bloomington’s program.

Since coming to IU, Luttin has been awarded more than 15 scholarships, fellowships and grants to fund projects that have earned her two consecutive Robert Harrison Awards for Excellence in Metalsmith and Jewelry Design. She’s been on panels, published in instructional books, and served as co-curator for a School of Fine Arts (SoFA) Gallery exhibit titled “Field of Vision.”

Pieces of Eight Jewellery Gallery

http://www.piecesofeight.com.au

Flip Side – Velvet da Vinci

JamFactory Contemporary Craft and Design Centre

Jewellers from the Metals Design Studio look at the Flip Side in their exhibition currently showing at Velvet da Vinci in San Francisco. Exhibiting artists are Alisa Dewhurst, Kath Inglis, Tassia Joannides, Sim Luttin, Sally Mahony, Lauren Simeoni, Belinda Newick and Melissa Turner

Velvet da Vinci Gallery in San Francisco presents “Flip side: Jewelry from JamFactory”, a show featuring new work from eight established Australian jewelers. Sue Lorraine, Creative Director of the Metals Design Studio and curator of Flip side, explains that the intention of this exhibition was to push these artists into a new dimension of their work. “There is always more than one point of view, always several ways to look at something, from the back and the front, the inside and the outside, the upside and the downside, the safe side and the flip side.” However, instead of creating drastically new pieces for the exhibition, Lorraine found that their mature and assured practice has allowed them to push the boundaries of their everyday work. For the last 30 years, JamFactory Contemporary Craft and Design Centre, located in Southern Australia, has been a center for the design, production, exhibition and sale of work by leading and emerging Australian designers / makers.

An exhibition catalog is available.
The artists exhibiting in the show are: Alisa Dewhurst, Kath Inglis, Tassia Joannides, Sim Luttin, Sally Mahony, Lauren Simeoni, Belinda Newick, Melissa Turner.

Tassia Joannides uses the common zipper as her medium. She has given this one-dimensional form body and substance. The armbands intentionally blur the boundaries between the inside and out. By unzipping and zipping they become part of the wearer, an intimate experience.

Melissa Turner uses stainless steel to create fluid and soft forms of beauty. There is no front or back, no pin back, no pendant, no ring shank, only fluid forms. These forms stand as an act of defiance to the jewelry world, without a wearable function.

Sally Mahony uses primarily stainless steel in her work. She manipulates the material to both extremes, making it corrode and shine to a satiny, seductive black. The brooches peel away from the body exposing fabric or metal beneath.

Kath Inglis again is a manipulator of materials. She carves PVC into three-dimensional wearable sculptures. Kath is inspired by the colors of shadows and reflections in water. Just as water has no top or bottom, no starting or ending point, her jewelry is a continuous ripple on the wearer.

Lauren Simeoni’s brooches reflect the impact materials have on the world. She is a lover of materials and the impact these material leave. In this series of brooches she has printed nostalgic images on aluminum and reveals a time of personal innocence.

Sim Luttin made this body of work while recently living in the U.S. As a visitor she was hyper-aware of her surroundings. Her necklaces reflect and magnify nature with their seed-like forms as vessels strung from dark beads.

Alisa Dewhurst and Belinda Newick have used the body as their starting points. Alisa crochets necklaces illustrating the repetitive genetic message of DNA, the building material that makes up each individual. She mimics this process in crocheted wire. Belinda uses the necklace to discuss the fragility, fertility and fecundity of the female anatomy.