Mirjam Hiller: The Graphics to her Jewellery

Artist list

Mirjam Hiller

Mirjam Hiller on her creative process:

“At first there is a thought, a very vivid, three-dimensional thought of a form, a room that I can go into. I explore it and let it enchant me. I would like to grasp and experience it over and over again.
The form is very complex, built of different colours, structures, shapes and scents and depending from where I look, everything changes.
I have to make decisions, reduce it to the essentials and find a way for a logical realization in order to give the construct of my thoughts, which is by no means logical, a place in this world of tangible things. I focus myself on one kind of material, one colour; everything else distracts me and redirects my thoughts. I capture the three-dimensional form that spreads out in front of my inner eye, unfold it to the second dimension, sketch it and cut it out with the awareness that every cut is a final one.”

“The cut out drawing lies in front of me,
one flat piece,
my unfolded thought.
I bend and fold it to the third dimension.
I’m excited to see if it really grows the way that I’ve imagined.
I enter the room again,
half in thoughts, half in reality.”


The juxtaposition of graphics and jewellery creates an extraordinary tension. Even if seen independently from the jewellery pieces that grow from them, the graphics emanate something autonomous, mysterious and leave a lot of room for the imagination.
Its viewers come up with very different and intuitive associations: Are they motifs of Australian Aborigines? Are they drawings used to classify plants? Medical illustrations? Machinery construction plans? A city in a bird’s eye view?
The graphics, from which her jewellery results, show very nicely how Mirjam Hiller’s thoughts on jewellery “unfold”.