Between Black and White by Evert Nijland

Artist list

Evert Nijland

With the exception of Rocaille, a white, pink, and blue necklace which references the Rococo style of the eighteenth century, this current body of work engages the perpetual contradiction between black and white. Necklaces, brooches, and bracelets are combined from a variety of black and white materials, such as leather, ebony, porcelain, flock, silver, and glass, to express the symbolism and emotional impact of light versus dark.

For Nijland light, as well as the attendant shades buried in shadow, are directly related to jewelry, exemplified by the contrast between the glittering reflection of precious stones and the gentle pathos of nineteenth century mourning jewelry. Adagio 1 is a brooch that combines wood, glass, textile, silver, steel, and human hair - the last a reference to mourning jewelry as well.

In keeping with the traditional use of glass as a substitute for precious and semi-precious stones in ancient and antique jewelry, Nijland has mixed transparent glass with timely mediums like black leather and blackened silver, to fabricate jewels in which some of the silver's natural shapes and textured surfaces are reminiscent of tree branches or snakes. The necklace, Trumpets, boasts his latest technique - blowing glass directly into a cast hollow silver form. In addition to jewelry, the exhibition will also feature objects such as Shine, a classically-inspired white porcelain cherub-on-stand, garlanded with iron beads and textile.


About the Artist:
A 1995 graduate of the prestigious Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Nijland also holds a BA in jewelry and MA in Applied Arts from Sandberg Institute, GRA, also located in Amsterdam. He is the recipient of several international awards, most recently the 2014 Stokroos Grant for Contemporary Silver, Materiaalfonds, the Netherlands. He has been the subject of several solo exhibitions, most recently at CODA Museum, Apeldoorn, the Netherlands in 2016, as well as participating in many group shows internationally. His work is in the permanent collections of numerous museums around the world, including CODA Museum, Apeldoorn; Rijksmuseum and Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Schmuckmuseum, Pforzheim, Germany; Victoria & Albert Museum, London, England; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas; Mint Museum, Charlotte, North Carolina; Glass Museum, Tacoma, Washington; and Museum of Arts and Design, New York.