Nebulae of Fragments. Threads and Traces by Ekaterina Korzh

Everything seems to begin with movement.
Wanderings between countries.
Fragments gathered along the way: pieces, remnants, scraps of places and memories accumulated through comings and goings. Fragments which, once assembled and transformed, take shape and trace new narratives.

The protocol is simple: to collect, to keep, to assemble.


Originally from Russia, Ekaterina Korzh initially studied geography and geopolitics. It may have been there that her desire to weave territorial narratives took root, to tell of spaces crossed by body and time through the language of jewellery.

At twenty-four, she crossed the Atlantic for the first time. Since then, she has moved between Russia, the United States and Colombia, carrying in her bag small traces of places, no larger than the palm of her hand. Precious fragments to keep and protect, like seeds of future stories.

Ekaterina Korzh.  Neckpiece: Souvenirs from Elsewhere, 2024. 
Found ceramic, sea shells, seed beads, cotton cord, cotton ribbons, cannetille, plastic cap, vintage mother-of-pearl and coral beads, and handmade textile.


Each element taken on its own might seem ordinary. Yet together, they form a personal lexicon of textures, shapes, and materials. Gathered from roadsides, beaches or landscapes, these fragments are assembled like rebuses. Crochet, felted wool and embroidery become instruments of memory and protection. Gestures that grant a new skin, where past and present meet. Textile becomes a space where memories take form, where objects hold both remembrance and renewed narrative. Repetitive, meditative gestures, historically deemed feminine, contain notions of intimacy and care.

Some pieces evoke specific places, collective landscapes or fragments of photographed memory. Arranged and composed, they resemble plastrons, read like poetic maps, where organic materials and remains of consumer society recall the cycles of time, while also acting as protective amulets, guardians of memory and trajectory.




Ekaterina Korzh. Neckpiece: Memento Mori, 2024.
Canvas, found ceramic tiles, found bones, sequence, polyester thread, cotton cord, found shells, found beach glass, vintage beads, vintage mother of pearl beads, upcycled tissue paper.


What makes an image specific or universal, what is understood and what is not?

This question runs through Ekaterina’s practice, where images are translated into materials, gestures, and textures as a way to make sense of what escapes words.
Her approach carries a deeply personal dimension, one of migration and perpetual reconstruction. Disparate elements — a bleached and carved bone, painted miniatures, small stones, or hand-stitched patterns on a piece of fabric— intertwine within the structure of the jewel. Fragmented and intimate, the wearable piece becomes a travel notebook, a personal journal telling a story through form and gesture to those who have not lived it directly.

Ekaterina Korzh. Neckpiece: Russian Mola, 2024.
Wool yarn, copper, vitreous enamel, silk and metal thread, organza, felted wool, vintage seed beads, silk.


In One Hard Year Story Necklace (2022), the artist’s condition and identity conflict are revealed through a jewel recalling the enamel miniatures of the eighteenth century. Figurative medallions painted in enamel, alongside motifs of organic texture, appear as personal signs, perhaps souvenirs forming a private rebus inscribed in time, reminiscent of the pearl necklace where one pearl was given each year, until the day the girl became a woman and wore it complete.





Ekaterina Korzh. Neckpiece: One hard year story, 2022.
Cotton ribbons, fine and sterling silver, vitreous enamel, gemstones, vitreous enamels, seed beads.


Ekaterina Korzh’s artwork materialises human and cultural flux, as well as the reading of borders, those lines that exist only when drawn on a map. In her pieces, they become tendrils, links that bind and reconnect. Each gesture, each knotted thread unfurls like a nebula, weaving memory and human attentiveness to the world, to what composes it and what passes through it. Images, forms, and skills drawn from diverse cultures intertwine. They offer a vision where encounter, dialogue, and transmission prevail over separation, where the artist’s gesture gathers and reconfigures the world, returning it to the hand, to listening, and to connection.


Ekaterina Korzh. Brooch: Back to USSR, 2023. 
Found wood, acrylic paint, felted wool, copper, vitreous enamel, steel wire, fine and sterling silver.


About Ekaterina Korzh:
Ekaterina Korzh is a contemporary jewellery artist born in Saint-Petersburg, Russia. She first studied silversmithing in Bogotá, Colombia, and received her MFA from the University of Kansas in 2024.
Her work spans a wide array of techniques, including enamel painting, beadwork, embroidery, 3D technologies, and recycled plastics. Korzh’s pieces have been exhibited internationally in the USA, Italy, Russia, the UK, Germany, Portugal, and Georgia. Several are held in public collections, including the Museum of Russian Art in Minneapolis, the Ilias Lalaounis Jewelry Museum in Athens (since November 2024), and the Accademia Riaci in Florence (since March 2018).
Through exhibitions, teaching, and ongoing exploration of both traditional and experimental methods, she continues to develop jewellery as a language of memory, gesture, and storytelling.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/korzhstudio/
Email: e.s.korzh@gmail.com

 >> Read the full CV here 


Ekaterina Korzh. Neckpiece: Colombian Story, 2023.
Vitreous enamel, copper, found wood, acrylic paint, polyester yarn, felted wool, wool yarn.