Cage by Evert Nijland

Artist list

Evert Nijland

Informed by the history of European art and architecture, Nijland is, nonetheless, committed to the present but propelled by the future. In both free-standing and wearable formats, he seamlessly blends the autonomy of sculpture with the imperatives of jewelry. He coaxes us to view his aesthetic through an inspired set of criteria by juxtaposing cultural markers long considered the opposite, such as ornate Baroque embellishments and sleek contemporary design, and using both traditional techniques and current digital practices in conjunction with substances as diverse as textile and iron, rope and porcelain, rubber and glass.

Open cage constructions of oxidized silver, combined with textiles, ceramics, and hand-blown glass, are the starting point for Nijland’s latest jewelry series, Cage, in which he aims to express the contrast between captivity and freedom, beauty and decay, inside and outside, attraction and repulsion, male and female, light and dark, hard and soft. Historically, open metal constructions often served as the basis for jewelry as well as underclothing, such as the crinoline or the corset. Nijland wishes to expand the cage concept by morphing it into a jewelry format. In so doing bracelets, chokers, and necklaces become portable cages, small metal constructions that may be opened and closed by means of hinge systems, with some of the metal partially covered and/or decorated with fragile materials such as porcelain and glass.

For Nijland, the primary challenge of the Cage series was to combine the irregularity of the manual with the perfection of the digital. Since he had reached a point where his ideas for the development of complex open structures with incorporated connection systems could no longer be executed by hand, Nijland turned to the up-to-the-minute technique of 3D printing — the next logical step for the creation of such jewelry — with the printed plastic models subsequently cast in silver. The resultant neckpieces and bracelets are among the most compelling examples of Nijland’s oeuvre to date.


Artist talk: 22nd of September, Sunday, 3 pm at The Jewelry Library, 1239 Broadway, NYC


About the artist:
A 1995 graduate of the prestigious Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, Nijland is the recipient of several international awards. In the Netherlands, he was the winner of the Dutch Design Prize, Fashion and Free Design (2007), where he also received a Stipendia Mondriaan Foundation (2004), Stokroos Stipendium voor eigentijds zilver (2014), Materiaalfonds (2014), and Fonds Kwadraat (2017). He was given the German Design Award (2008) and was nominated for an Arts & Crafts Award, Leipzig (2014). Nijland was also awarded the Foundation Uudenmaan Taidetoimikunta, Helsinki, Finland (2006), as well as The Sotheby’s Design Award, London, England (2005). His work is in the permanent collections of numerous museums, including CODA Museum, Apeldoorn; Rijksmuseum and Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; National Zilvermuseum, Schoonhoven; and MMK Museum, Arnheim — all in the Netherlands; Schmuckmuseum, Pforzheim; Victoria & Albert Museum, London; Musée des Arts Décoratifs et de la Mode, Marseille, France; MIMA, Middelsbrough Institute of Modern Art, Middelsbrough, United Kingdom; Glass Museum, Tacoma, Washington; Mint Museum of Craft & Design, Charlotte, North Carolina; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas; and Museum of Arts and Design, New York, New York.