Bettina Dittlmann & Michael Jank: xxooxxooxxoox

Artist list

Bettina Dittlmann, Michael Jank

Pure, unalloyed metal, blazing flame and reverberating hammer blows. Bettina Dittlmann and Michael Jank forge rings. Unpolished, archaic and monumental. The technique is timeless, the surface structure arising solely out of the actual process of making. Sometimes the rings seem like archaeological finds eroded by time, sometimes their texture is refined and delicate. Whatever the case, they are rings for eternity, to be cherished and to be worn: 'Foreverrings'.

It is exceptional that two artists create their jewellery designs jointly. So it is even more remarkable that Dittlmann also makes her own individual designs. In every sense these are the opposite to the gnarled rings. Her jewellery is subtle, almost fragile. They are frail 'sketches' in metal wire, often covered with an equally delicate enamel. In her new, large brooches the sketchy aspect has taken on the form of drawn structures. Applied onto a reflective surface they seem to float in timeless space.

On the one hand, the circular shape of the rings, on the other the intersections in the lines on the mirrors: the closed line of the circle symbolising continuity and the crosses as the carrier of this eternity. Two artists: circle and cross. As alfa and omega. XXOOXXOOXXOOX

Ward Schrijver
(copyright Galerie Rob Koudijs)