Preziosa Young 2023 at Oratorio di San Rocco

Artist list

Maria Camera-Smith, Xinyi Chen, Hasan Kurd

Three voices and three narratives contribute to Preziosa Young's lively and polychrome story and confirm its international and intercultural character. A place of meeting and discussion for those who, through the practice of art, take action to counter the aberrant culture of wars and oppression that characterizes these years.

Exhibition Calendar:
The three artists will be displayed in the Oratorio San Rocco in Padua, the most iconic venue in Italy for exhibitions dedicated to contemporary jewelry research. We are finalizing agreements for other venues, details of which will be gradually published.
from 18. Oct to 10. Nov 2024.
9:30-19:00 h.

As part of the PREZIOSA - Florence Jewelry Week project, Preziosa Young represents our contribution to supporting the new generations of artisans, designers, and artists who explore innovative paths or anticipate future trends. Confirming our intuition and our attention, it is a source of satisfaction to note how PY has been a wonderful viaticum for the majority of the artists selected in past editions, who have continued their careers successfully, are present in many galleries, have obtained further recognitions and prizes.

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Artist's Statement:
Hasan Kurd
It is well known as a mark of the beginning of civilization when humans started to create tools. Over time, these tools have helped their creators achieve their goals and have led to the development of more tools. My project seeks to focus on the cultural, material, and philosophical relationships between body and tool, culture and language. This is to deal with the tool’s symbolic and utility functions. In the project, I question this historic connection by creating abstract tools and jewelry, examining the boundaries and transitions between the tool and body movements, between natural and artificial materials, between geometric and energetic forms, between the holding and what is being held, and more.

I chose to focus on these questions by using manual and mechanical tools working in marble stone. The marble is a culturally and economically charged material, analogical to the human body in terms of absorption, toughness, flexibility, and transparency. To me, these features of the marble made it a natural extension or a part of the body. It has a simultaneous relationship with the space around it as well as before the eyes of the observer.

Xinyi Chen
Electronic components have a special place in my heart– I call them ‘Artificial Intelligems’. I am fascinated with their shapes, textures, colors, precise structures, digital spirituality, and hidden beauty, and draw from my childhood memory by my computer practitioner mother. My practice combines digital-based production processes with traditional crafts and found object, using 3D scanning, printing and laser engraving, to explore the past and the future, with the world I live, creating my own idiom. Setting with electronic components evoke dialogue between digital technology and manual skills that captivates audiences with curiosity and visual delight. Acting within a broader context of sustainability and the younger generation's awareness of E-waste, WEEE Recycling Centre formed part of the supply chain. Through the elevation of e-waste as a luxury material with circular economy, my jewellery challenge and propose a transgressive approach to what we value moving forward, highlighting boundary between ‘physical versus digital’ and showing a new way of living in digital awe and pleasure.

Maria Camera-Smith
My craft practice is an exploration of self, body adornment, and nostalgia. I rely on jewelry formats as systems to analyze my environment. The historical and cultural threads that persist through jewelry allow me to place things into a context that can be both expressive and introspective. The forms that I use are direct casts from trees and plants from geographic locations that hold personal significance. These forms undergo a cycle of fabrication that include casting, mold-making, soldering, and enameling, which often is nonconsecutive. Enameling processes allow me to capture imagery and hues that hold nostalgic, sentimental value. I walk through the woods and analyze. Along the way, I collect small physical and abstract details. Integrating this content into my practice allows me to immortalize the moments I experienced while working through the emotional weight of that point in time. I craft art jewelry pieces to enable myself to process the landscape that I currently find myself in, while also digging into the roots of who I am as a maker.

Check the artist's CV's


In collaboration with Comune di Padova.
With the contribution of Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Padova e Rovigo.
 
Preziosa Young is a project organized and managed by LAO – Le Arti Orafe, Giò Carbone.