Sheridan Kennedy: O tremblant! (An animated collection of jewels)

Artist list

Sheridan Kennedy’s work is an engaging blend of the pragmatic and the frivolous. She combines her enthusiasm for engineering kinetic things, with her love of the indulgent luxuries and extravagant pleasures of dressing up. Function follows form in objects that explore the ingenuity of the natural world, the sensual delights of the decorative, and the seductive interplay between object and wearer. This new collection of jewellery on exhibit at Studio 20/17 from the 21st of August explores something of the social life of jewels, Kennedy says ‘we become involved with a piece of jewellery, we fall in love with it because it seduces our imagination, it feels just right, it draws attention to us.’

This is the social life of objects from an evolutionary perspective: the jewel evolves an awareness of the simple expediency of survival – in being chosen, in taking up its position of privilege on shoulder, neck or finger it provides embellishment and beauty which reflects well on the character of the wearer, and thus it receives in turn the care and attention that perpetuates its species.

Combine an ongoing fascination for the collusive relationship that develops between wearer and jewel, add a sprinkling of evolutionary theory, throw in some kinetic mechanisms that nostalgically revive faded jewellery traditions, finish with some innovative twists and there you have O tremblant: a collection of lively attention-seeking jewels.