New Traditional Jewellery 2014 Winners

Artist list

Beatrice Brovia, Nicholas Cheng, Teresa Dantas, Hayan Kim, Elista Macheva, Alejandra Solar

From the selected 45 finalists, the jury judged the skilled works as they related to this year's theme, Confrontations.  The winners of the 2014 New Traditional Jewellery Design Contest have been announced at the SIERAAD Art Fair.  The awarded artists of the Professional catergory were Teresa Dantas and Nicholas Cheng and Beatrice Brovia whilst Alejandra Solar, Elista Macheva and Hayan Kim were the winners of the Student Catergory.


Teresa Dantas (1965), Portugal
Winner Category A: Professional
Necklace: Phoenix, 2014

Artist Statement:
With ‘Phoenix’, Dantas portrays our proclivity for evil. It is part of man, something natural that can reveal itself when we are confronted with different convictions. The photograph shows how far this can go. “We are confronted with burning tires, garbage cans, destruction, fire and violence”, Dantas enumerates. “I process the remains. Everything is black. But there is also hope: for me this is represented by the subtlety and the softness of the material”.

Jury Statements:
From the jury report: “This brooch is about smartphones, small screens that show us the world, but on which we also show ourselves to the world. Smartphones claim a lot of our time, attention and energy. They are also the ‘New Valuable’, containing metals which are bones of contention in geopolitical conflicts. The brooch is simple and minimalistic – a contemporary representation, both reflective and transparent. It is a reflective, confronting piece of jewellery”.

Nicholas Cheng (1982), Hong Kong & Beatrice Brovia (1985), Italy
Winner Category A: Professional
Brooch: Untitled, 2014

Artist Statement:
The brooch was inspired by a portable screen, like in smartphones: ubiquitous and constantly in use. “These small screens are the most important medium to interact with the world around us and are a source of entertainment”, Cheng and Brovia outline. “The brooch was made of broken optical film taken from a smartphone. It is both transparent and reflective”, the duo explains the literal and figurative aspects. They go one step further: “These screens are made of gold and tantalum; essential minerals that only too often are mined under dubious conditions. This confronts us with the other side of our consumer behaviour…” they conclude.

Jury Statements:
“This necklace refers explicitly to all the trouble spots in the world”, according to the jury. “It evokes associations with fetish and amulet. It literally smells of discontentment. We, members of the jury, have come across a thing or two in the way of use of materials, but this burned rubber has an absolutely confronting quality. It is an expressive, confronting piece of jewellery”

Alejandra Solar (1975), Mexico-Spain
Winner Category B: Student
Brooch: Shining Darkness, 2014

Artist Statement:
“The Aztecs believed that darkness begets light and, by extension, life”, Solar recounts. “In their world creation is the result of a confrontation between opposites, for which Mictlantecuhtli, god of the gods, serves as a model. He represents death and life force. This god goes through the process of dying, but also comes back to life”, she explains. “I expressed this belief in my brooch. I mixed resin with graphite, poured the mixture into a cornleaf (corn being the staple food of the Mexicans, ubiquitous in their culture and religion) and fastened this to a fragment of onyx”. 

Jury Statements: 
“A fascinating confrontation of materials: natural and synthetic and the transition of black to transparent, a beautiful composition of forms and command of technique”, it says in the jury report. “An apt abstract representation of opposites. A very poetically worked piece of jewellery; a mature and immensely detailed piece”.

Elitsa Macheva (1990), Bulgaria
Winner Category B: Student
Necklace: Untitled, 2014

Artist Statement:
“I want to denounce the social inequality in my home country, Bulgaria”, Macheva recounts. “My work deals with the confrontation between poverty and wealth. The necklace stands for human values and necessities of life. I cut the shape of a diamond from bread as a protest against a society in which some people acquire wealth, luxury and things like diamonds, whereas other are hardly able to keep themselves alive”. she says.       

Jury Statements: 
“It is a necklace and a chain”, typifies the jury. “An approach using clichés as the biblical bread which is worth more than diamonds when you have no food; the heavy chains of poverty pressing down on shoulders. It is a very effective and well-executed way to denouce the social problems in Bulgaria”, the jury concludes.

Hayan Kim (1987), Korea
Winner Category B: Student
Brooch: Pictograph, 2014

Artist Statement:
“Every day I am confronted with being a Korean in a German – and therefore European – environment”, Kim explains. “As a symbol of this cultural splits I took the German word for fork, ‘Gabel’ and the Korean word for chopsticks, ‘Cheotgarak’. The brooch is built up of the letters of these two words and the difference between the alphabet and the Korean script catches the eye immediately. It is not just the contrast between word and word image. If you try to make out what it says, you get an inkling of the confrontations I experience”, Kim concludes.

Jury Statements: 
“The piece represents an intrinsic confrontation between irreconcilable cultures: Korea versus Germany and is a personal story about the effect on identity and self-image. To express this she took a fork and some chopsticks as her basis without taking this literally. Kim has created a very intelligent translation, referring to cultural identity being ensured in writing and print”.


JURY

The jury consists of the following members (in random order):

Liesbeth Den Besten: Independent art historian, Chair of Françoise van den Bosch Foundation, committee member Art Jewelry Forum, coach Wearable Senses TU/e.
Drs. Fredric Baas, curator Stedelijk Museum ’s-Hertogenbosch Museum for Contemporary Art and Design.
Herman Hermsen, jewellery artist, Professor für Schmuck-und Produktdesign Fachhochschule Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences.
Eveline Holsappel, curator Applied Art and Design, Museum for Modern Art, Arnhem.
Isabella van den Bos, chairwoman Foundation Art in Business.