Eccentri:city – a showcase of contemporary jewellery – launches next week at Whitespace Gallery on Gayfield Square. All the objects are inspired by Edinburgh.
Readers may reasonably expect deeply pitted pieces filling with rainwater and brown sauce, but they will be pleasantly surprised.
Each artist began by taking a photograph of their favourite place in the city. These were put into a hat and drawn out at random, with each jeweller then obliged to create a three-dimensional response.
Among the 17 artists displaying their work is Broughton-based Claire Pouget Wright, who expresses her love of colour, old crumbling houses and winding streets using a combination of photo-etching, stone setting and Lazertran techniques (see right). Locals may remember Claire's six silver push pins, inspired by the Water of Leith, which appeared at the Broughton Deli Festival exhibiition – 'Edinburgh Mapped' – in August 2011.
Caroline Cloughley examines the dichotomy of beauty and terror which informs a variety of personal phobias including fears of moths, butterflies, the dark, and crowds. Such Hitchcockian or Jekyll and Hyde collisions are explored using 'precious metals and gemstones [...] combined with the utilitarian mundanity of materials such as acetate, paper, and laminate'.
Cloughley's carefully chosen materials 'accumulate physically to form an accurate portrayal of the form and flight of the tiny monsters of her subconscious'.
Rosalind Andain and Jaime MacDonald are inspired by Nature but express their fascination in different ways. Andain's geometric shapes complement natural forms and use repetition and movement to bring alive her sculptural forms. The ring below – fashioned from silver and some gold – was made in response to a photograph of Dyer's Close in the Old Town.
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MacDonald re-uses and recycles mainly plastics to create delicate and tactile pieces reflecting the Scottish landscape. An earlier example of her work is 'Corolla', shown below. The pendant was made using sterling silver and contact lens containers.
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Reticulation, fusing, patination and fold forming distinguish Rhona Hogg's unpredictable creations. 'I have always been inspired by land and materials, from aerial views [to] surface textures and what's hidden under the microscope,' she writes. From these she creates beautifully simple pieces with complex surfaces, which she describes as 'both quirky and bespoke'.
If Spurtle readers are wondering how we come to know so much about jewellery all of a sudden, the answer is we don't. However, we know what we like, and having attended a show organised by the Association for Contemporary Jewellery before and enjoyed it, hold high hopes for this new one in the heart of Broughton.
[Eccentri:city runs from 14–26 July at 11B Gayfield Square: 10am–6pm (Mon.-Fri.); 11am–5pm (Sats); 11am–4pm (Suns).]