Like Lines Being Drawn Onto Paper. Koen Jacobs Silver Skeletons

What we know from first sun
Grows further away
As we do
The drawings made from crayons and paper
Left on the table and in a drawer
Tropical birds, and lizards Riddled the kitchen floor
Tiles criss crossing
With red sunsets painting the grout
The small animals
Held on paper
Grown from colored outlines
Gem colored eyes
And claws like hands


Like lines being drawn onto paper, Jacobs’ pieces are outlines of imagined recollections from his childhood. Articulated animal skeletons adorned with chunky luscious gemstones specimens. Made from Silver, Koen Jacobs regards his animal kingdom with ‘attempts to return to childhood, back to a space of innocence’ that in its essence is ‘difficult to reach, you can never really return to those moments.

We enter into imaginary spaces when we are kids. Ones suspended in our imagination and made from the surrounding everyday objects. Jacobs observes this in how his animal skeletons came to be. Seeing objects in a natural history museum he noticed how the skeletons were a kind of stand-ins, a prop. Memories of the animals that passed for these objects to be present.

What interested people most was what the skeleton were before, animals with skins, with scales, feathers and beaks. The outlines of bones, he realized,  were just a prop for us to imagine the animal on the other side of its life. Studying the architecture of these skeletons, Jacobs began to make his silver articulated necklaces. Growing them from line to line, form to form - these animals call back not to their original animals, their skins, eyes and guts that would comprise them - instead they are imagined memories from an exotic childhood.



Koen Jacobs, double brooch: Jacaré, 2018, Silver, silicium carbide, fimo, 19 x 35 x 5 cm, From series: The Artificial Kingdom


The artist extracts moments from his childhood growing up in Brazil, something completely foreign to a young Dutch boy, and uses it as a lens to ‘start to build a path back to that child.’ One could assume this results in wholly narrative work, but the resulting jewelry recollects and savours a moment.  



Koen Jacobs, Wearable marionette, Tartaruga Marinha, 2019, Silver, silicium carbide, peridot, 20 x 23 x 46 cm


The artist utilizes a closely held story to communicate something both personal and universal - an easy and usual task for jewelry. Koen Jacobs silver skeletons embody childhood drawings and they ask the questions - how do we balance who we are with who we were; when we look back are we seeing ourselves bathed in rose coloured light; and if we return to those moments, would we kill our darlings….

Jewelry in Jacobs practice is an authorial opening to mediate how we deal with our childhood selves because every day we carry them with us. In these works, we meet ourselves once more, as grown-ups and grown downs. 

About the author

Aaron Decker is an artist based in the midwest, but having grown up all over the united states, he calls Alaska and Maine both home. decker works in product development for Shinola Detroit while maintaining a thriving studio practice including new collections of jewelry, custom pieces, and regular exhibitions. a collection of enamelled objects can be found at the Shinola hotel ‘living room,’ and a selection of jewelry can be seen at the Woodward avenue store in downtown Detroit. 
Aaron decker’s jewelry can be seen both nationally and internationally, recent exhibitions include body alchemy, 21 grams, and design Miami showing with Ornamentum Gallery.