Stefan Heuser: A Master Of Selfcontrol Narrated

Artist list

Stefan Heuser

Pieces of jewellery are inextricably connected to their value in terms of material worth, the status derived from wearing them and, increasingly, their artistic merit. The German artist Stefan Heuser is playing an intellectual game with the value-concept. His Duo Tone brooches, for instance, look like plain lustreless black surfaces but if you turn them over they are studded on the back with gemstones, silver and enamel.

Emotional values, like the tenderness felt when feeding a baby, also serve as material for Heuser’s work. By adding a minimal amount of artificial matter to breast milk he created a new, fecund material for making jewellery; as fine as gold, as pure as pearls… He has fashioned it into classical-looking rings and necklaces: the crossover between materials and shapes results in jewellery with multifaceted connotations.

A person’s self-esteem is probably their most valuable asset. Using this principle as a starting point, Heuser makes pieces that are as brilliant as heart-rending. He constructs busts of himself, good self-portraits, using pulverized pills as materials, the sorts of pills that exist to keep life ‘nice’: aspirin, Viagra, sleeping pills. In this respect these portraits provide us with food for thought about modern life and demonstrate the unlimited scope of a piece of jewellery as a work of art.

Ward Schrijver
(© Galerie Rob Koudijs)