New Work by Brooke Battles and Donna D'Aquino

Artist list

Brooke Battles, Donna D'Aquino

The work of these two American metalsmiths displays some current trends in
contemporary craft. The exploration of material challenges common ideas of jewelry and preciousness. Although both use gold in some of the work, it is the manipulation of form and material that interests these artists more than the intrinsic value of that material.
Donna D'Aquino's large steel bracelets are as much about sculpture as they are about adornment. Brooke Battles jewelry is a sort of visual diary of the past few years as she has renovated her homes. She creates an iconic form of "home" as shelter and inspiration.

From Brooke Battles:

my head was still in the house -- the importance of the house in our lives, the journey we took to get to the finished house, the way the house had become my art, the emotional value of the house, the topography on which the house was built, as well as my relationship to the process and to the finished product. And from our specific house to the meaning and importance of house and home to each of us.
So that is what you see here -- the simple, small gold box that takes on a significance far beyond its size. It symbolizes that thing in which we have invested, that represents the pure concentration of our efforts. The simple representation of the importance of home and the stability it gives us.

Donna D'Aquino's

current work is based primarily on line and the act of drawing. It is inspired by interior and exterior skeletal structures. Working primarily in steel and 18k gold her pieces may be simple forms playing off the blackness of the steel with the yellow of high-karat gold. The very complex skeletal pieces suggest 3-D drawings of machine parts, or cubist renderings of shifting geometric forms.