Kaleidoscope: A World of Color

Artist list

Maria Eife, Linnéa Eriksson, Heng Lee, Emiko Oye, Gaetano Pesce, Uli Rapp, Yu-Ping Lin

The exhibition will feature some exclusives like emiko oye’s homage to American abstract expressionist Richard Diebenkorn. Like Diebenkorn, Oye is a Bay Area artist. The artist was drawn to Abstract Expressionist’s color palette and in her unique style interpreted his iconic work into her LEGO jewelry. There are sixteen examples of Diebenkorn’s work in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art, located just down the block from the gallery. Titled Diebenkorn Lived Here, this is the artist’s follow-up to her acclaimed Salvador Dali- inspired body of work. Kaleidoscope will also present the work of three international artists whose work has either has never been seen or rarely been seen in the US, including Heng Lee, Yu-Ping Lin, and Linnéa Eriksson, and Uli Rapp.

About the Artists:

Maria Eife is an American artist living and practicing in Philadephia. With a BA in Jewelry and Metals from the Tyler School of Art Temple University, Eife's artistic practice innovatively combines traditional craft skill and values with new technologies. The creative experimentation of these works pushes the borders of virtual and wearable as well as craft and design. Eife says, “I aim to create elegant, playful and structurally complex adornments that compliment the wearer and intrigue the viewer.” The artist’s most recent collection, Loops and Cages, is the result of virtual, three-dimensional building. Using CAD software, she creates complex forms that are printed in plastics or wax, and later dyed or cast in precious metals. Eife uses CAD and 3D printing in combination with traditional crafts skills to create complicated forms that require these tools to exist.

Linnéa Eriksson was born and raised in Filipstad, Sweden, and is now living and working in Gothenburg, where, since 2012, she is the co-owner of Four, a gallery, store and workshop. Eriksson has a bachelor's degree in jewelry art and design from the School of Design and Crafts (HDK), Gothenburg, and spent a semester studying jewelry and metalsmithing at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Providence. The artist creates street art-influenced jewelry and sharp design, both for exhibitions and stores. A combination of one of-a-kind pieces, jewelry collections and custom made pieces within the field of jewelry and design. Eriksson’s work is a reflection of her surroundings, and her creativity has its origin in the urban - in the rough surface of the city and in the structured geometric. “I find my inspiration in pieces of metal, in the feeling of a heavy beat, and in an explosion of color from within the spray cans.” It is in a combination of traditional jewelry crafts and the modern street expression that Eriksson’s jewelry finds its charge, and subjects such as family history, the need to belong, and jewelry as a protective shield is constantly recurring in her artistic work.

Heng Lee was born and raised Taiwan, where he still maintains a studio practice. Lee received his MFA in Metalsmithing and Jewelry from Tainan National University of the Arts, Taiwan and his BA in Arts and Design from the National Hsinchu University of Education, Taiwan. In the Pixel Series, Lee magnifies patterns found in historic Eastern and Western garments byhand-embroidering silk organza fabric to mimic pixelated image. As the image is enlarged, it becomes an out of focus mosaic that expands beyond the border of the steel frame. The artist combines his interest in modern day technologies with traditional hand- embroidery. Lee has participated in numerous international jewelry exhibitions and launched Bench 886, a collective of 10 Taiwanese art jewelers who regularly exhibit together across the world.

Yu-Ping Lin is a Taiwanese artist, currently based in Ireland, who works with textiles and jewelry. Lin’s ideas about 3D structures originate from her mastery of paper cutting and folding. She is inspired by Origami and paper art, architecture, original patterns, and the structure of organisms inherent in nature. Lin’s work is comprised of polyester felt, nature fiber, synthetic fabric, silk, metal and mixed media. The artist employs a variety of techniques in her work, including Origami, paper cutting, laser cutting, hand painting, dyeing, digital printing, transferring and fabricating.

Emiko Oye is a San Francisco based designer inspired by haute couture, art history, and LEGO®. She creates colorful, bold jewelry from conceptual art statements to urban ready-to-wear. Utilizing LEGO® and semi-precious materials, oye’s jewelry universally tugs on the nostalgic heartstrings, and artfully interweaves memories into conversation-sparkingadornment. In working with recycled media, the artist discovered similarities in both LEGO® and jewelry: hands-on-story-telling capabilities, increased value with vintage, dedicated collectors, generational status as family heirloom. Her work has been shown in more than 80 exhibitions across the United States and internationally, published in American Craft, Metalsmith, Jewelry Artist, Smithsonian, Readymade, Ornament, Lark Books, On Jewellery, Humor in Craft, and is in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Museum of Contemporary Craft. She regularly lectures on her work and professional practices for conferences, art organizations and schools. She was also chosen to design the 2015 Art Jewelry Forum Supporter Pin.

Gaetano Pesce was born in 1939, in La Spezia, Italy but has resided in New York City since 1980. Over the course of his prolific career, Pesce has become an iconic architect and designer. He taught for 28 years at the Institut d’Architecture et d’Etudes Urbaines in Strasbourg and has lectured at cultural institutes and universities around the world. His multidisciplinary designs have been included in the permanent collections of MoMA and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Vitra Design Museum in Germany, and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, as well as other museums in Japan, Portugal, and Finland. His architectural, urban planning, exhibition, and interior design work is characterized by the bold use of color and revolutionary materials. Pesce’s interest in revolutionary materials and processes led to continuous innovations in language, formal results, and production modes. Among the most popular of Pesce’s exhibitions are the legendary Italy: The New Domestic Landscape shown at MoMA in 1972, the 1975 retrospective at the Paris Museum of Decorative Arts entitled Le future est peut-être passé, another retrospective entitled Gaetano Pesce: ltemps des questions shown at the Centre Pompidou in 1996, Gaetano Pesce: il rumore del tempo held at the Triennale of Milan in 2005, and the most recent Il Tempo della Diversitá at MAXXI in Rome in 2014. Pesce has received many awards, including the "Chrysler Award for Innovation and Design" in 1993, the "Architektur & Wohnen Designer of the Year" in 2006, and the "Lawrence J. Israel Prize" awarded by the Fashion Institute of Technology of New York in 2009.

Uli Rapp is an artist/designer who grew up in Germany. She decided to study jewelery and product design at the Gerrit Rietveld Art Academy and later received her MA at the Sandberg Institute. Her research and graduation collection was the starting point for her label ULI which she launched in 2003. Her main source of inspiration is the 16th century fashions and jewelry of Elizabeth I of England and trompe l'oeil painting. Displaying imaginary wealth plays a leading role: using diamonds and pearls as prints and exaggerated large textile stones which she enlarges and layers.. The Uli collection consists of screenprinted textile jewelry constructed using rubber and fabric, which give the pieces tactility and flexibility. The material she works with is a unique process she developed over the years – its ability to adapt to the body shape of the wearer makes it even more special. She combines old and new textile screen-printing techniques in her work. Uliʼs pieces are in the permanent collections of the Dutch Textile Museum(Tilburg), Museum Boijmans van Beuningen(Rotterdam), the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Museum of Applied Arts in Frankfurt and the Grassimuseum in Leipzig, Germany. She has developed exclusive designs for Danish fabric company ʻKvadratʼ. Her unique pieces are regularly at jewelry auctions in Brussels at Pierre Bergé auction house. Rapp creates unique pieces as well as limited editions. All pieces are handmade in her own printing studio in Amsterdam.

Gallery Hours: Monday- Saturday, 11-6:30 and Sunday, 12-6.
Opening: December 2, 2015 and on view through January 10, 2016
Special Holiday Shopping Event December 17, 2015