Mette Saabye
Jeweller
/
MunichSchmuckFair2025
MunichSchmuckFair2026
Published: 16.06.2026
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Statement
Mette Saabye is one of Denmark's most distinguished jewellery artists. For over 30 years she has refined and challenged her artistic expression to become a multisensory and nonverbal language. The making of jewellery art is her way of being in touch with life and giving voice to her observations, understandings and perspectives on various subjects.With her work, Mette investigates themes such as memory, and cultural identity. She is concerned with the impact of aesthetics on people, as well as the interrelation between body and object in a social context. Her works are typically expressed in an elegant and simple style.
Stone Poetry - A slice of home
As a child, I hoped to become an archaeologist. I was fascinated by history and ancient cultures.
Another interest of mine was finding fossils by the sea with my father. We often did, and when a new piece was found, he would explain what kind of animal it had once been.
I was fascinated by these objects that kept a door open to lost cultures and time. I felt connected across time and cultures - so close and still separated. The brooches are questioning the matter of cultural identity. They are artificial fossils, referring to the culture that shaped me.
Complementing Reality by Mette Saabye and Helen Clara Hemsley since 2022.
Helen Clara Hemsley and Mette Saabye use their personal experiences, immediate surroundings and international events in their childhood/youth during the 70s and 80s to make jewellery together, bearing witness to their lives in two countries so far away from each other, and the overlaps and connections between them. But also the holes that they try to fill together, carefully, with respect and kindness – thereby complementing reality.
By bringing together subjective and objective perspectives on themes such as Homeland, Mothers and Fathers, the artists have developed a series of works in which each topic is reflected through a response by both artists, creating a mirror of different experiences, perceptions and memories.
As part of their working process, Helen and Mette visited places that are significant to both of them, in Denmark and South Africa, and collected site-specific materials and impressions. They filmed, talked to people and photographed locations that forever hold memories and lived experiences. All of these elements create a living catalogue of things, feelings and materials, which are then used to inform their works.
This all results in works exploring notions of belonging, home, family and connection, celebrating an unconventional sisterhood.
The project is supported by the Danish Arts Foundation, Danmarks Nationalbank’s Anniversary Foundation and Copenhagen Goldsmiths’ Guild.
Complementing reality has been shown at Wolfgang Gebhard: Visuelle Kommunikation in Munich and PLATINA in Stockholm. Future exhibitions in Copenhagen, December 2026 and Tinsel Gallery, Johannesburg, February 2027.
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