Perceptual Surfaces in Flux: Mirrors, Embodied Vision and Optical Fields in Contemporary Jewellery

…There was a fountain silver-clear and bright…There as he stooped
to quench his thirst, another thirst increased. While he is drinking, he beholds himself
reflected in the mirrored pool—and loves;
loves an imagined body which contains
no substance, for he deems the mirrored shade
a thing of life to love…
(Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book III) [1]


Introduction
The quote from Ovid's Metamorphosis vividly captures the ideas of awareness, illusion, and vanity as Narcissus, the hunter from Greek mythology, falls in love with his idol and the beauty reflected in a pool of water. Enchanted by his reflection, he became obsessed and unable to move his gaze away; he stared until he died. When illuminated by light, the mirror, a perfectly reflective object, becomes a potent testimony canvas of reflected images. Ancient and medieval scientists recognised quite well that the single most important science of all was the study of light and its properties.

Early evidence of polished obsidian mirrors dates back to approximately 6,000 BCE in Neolithic Anatolia. In the Middle Ages, alchemists and mystics perceived mirrors as magical portals into the divine, the upper realms, and the unknown. Mirrors were an essential component of the ornamental Italianate costume throughout the Renaissance, serving as a girdle or belt worn around the neck or as a pendant. The difficult and extended technological transition from metal to glass mirrors is best represented by masterpieces from the early Quattrocento Italian Murano island, followed by the Saint-Gobain Company in France in the 17^th century.

Sabine Melchior Bonnet, in her book A History of Mirrors, 1994, clearly demonstrates the fascination of French aristocracy with mirrors during the 16^th century, before they became common in civic life, “Fortunes were depleted not only on wall mirrors, but also on mirrored jewelry, valued in inventories along with rings and necklaces and often offered as among the most sumptuous wedding gifts. [2]


Mirror with Handle in the Form of a Hathor Emblem, Disk: silver; handle: wood (modern) sheathed in gold (ancient), New Kingdom, ca. 1479–1425 B.C.
Image Credit: MET Museum, USA.


While skilled glassmakers and goldsmiths used the famous Venetian crystalline glass, as it came to be known, for mirrors, the craft's production and technological advancement were made possible by nobility-organized patronage initiating in the early 14^th century.

Mirrors embedded in jewellery, ivory-mirrored cases for grooming made by skilled pignier carvers, and sumptuous wedding gifts are visible in multiple reproductions found in Renaissance etching miniatures from the 15^th century, reflecting shifting notions of identity and material culture, as Bonnet informs us, Mirrored jewelry given to Isabelle de Saint-Chamond in 1610 by her father was crystal encased in gold, decorated with eight ruby roses, and the rich bride in the following poem wears: Mirrors made of Venetian glass/ The laced fan, the flaps à la Guise /So many chains of jet and so many bracelets. [3]

Contemporary jewellery artists, in keeping with the field's conceptual self-reflexivity, embrace reflective materials in novel ways, frequently provoking a critical discourse on embodiment, one that pays full tribute to a holistic sensorial experience. We may view these mediums as active agents of meaning production that challenge fixed notions of perception and identity. The engagement with themes of selfhood and performativity reminds us of humanist notions and the individual's central role in the universe.


Mirror Case with Pairs of Lovers, French unknown artist, 2nd quarter 14^th century, bequest to the Walters Art Museum by Henry Walters in 1931, Accession number 71.168.
Image Credit: Walters Art Museum, USA, ©.


This particular area of contemporary jewellery has already been established since the emergence of the field in the 1970s, with iconic works by Gerd Rothman’s (DE) intimate body imprints in early 1976, where the wearer’s body becomes the reflective subject, and Gijs Bakker’s (NL) sensorial, avant-garde Large Collar, 1967; Georg Jensen’s (DK) Möbius luminous series, in 1968, and Myra Mimlitsch-Gray’s (USA) commentary on wearability and temporality with the work Timepiece from 1988; additionally we should mention, Linda Macneil's (USA) Mirror and Glass series from 1995-, on reflection and self-perception, Otto Künzli's (DE) subtle reflective Tear pendant necklace, 2003, and more recently, Noon Passama’s (TH) optical enquiries with the Extra Button Series brooches from 2011.

To understand contemporary jewellery’s recent engagement with reflective materials, we have to first address the challenges these materials present to stable notions of identity, perception, and phenomenological experience. One could suggest that these materials can be seen as activators of sensory experiences, disrupting certain modes of seeing, and thus acting as instruments that materialise cognition through embodiment. On another level, optical devices stand as vessels for vision and illusion, transforming appearances and images in time and space through ritualistic materiality. Ultimately, understanding the function and impact of reflective materials, as well as their application in jewellery, necessitates considering their cultural and historical context.


The Mirror Motif in Visual Arts
Throughout the ages, mirrored artefacts have been witnessed in both the visual and applied arts. Mirrors served as objects for scientific and philosophical exploration during the Renaissance, thereby advancing artistic perspectivism. Editors of the book Mirrors and Mirroring from Antiquity to the Early Modern Period, 2020, Maria Gerolemou, a classical studies researcher, and Lilia Diamantopoulou, a scholar of modern Greek studies, inform us that …from the Renaissance onwards mirrors as an imaging technology were, in fact, developed further, not independent of perspectivism, and used to produce accurate reflections and thus serve artistic realism or to attain natural and philosophical truth. [4]

Iconic paintings such as Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait, 1434, and Diego Velázquez’s Las Meninas,1656, utilise mirrors to explore themes of perception and reality. Mirrors have been employed in modern and contemporary art in genres spanning installations, sculpture, and immersive environments in ways that mediate illusion, displacement, interaction, and identity crisis.

Surrealists like René Magritte and Salvador Dalí explored mirrors to access the unconscious, whereas contemporary artists like Yayoi Kusama, Anish Kapoor, Jeff Koons, and Olafur Eliasson evolve this legacy, using reflective materials to offer sensorial experience, and spectacle while addressing surveillance and subjectivity.


Jeff Koons, Sacred Heart (Blue/Magenta), 1994 – 2007,
Steel, Image Credit Jeff Koons ©, WikiArt Organization.


Fragments of the Self: Mirror, Wearability and the Reflective Object
Modern human sciences and critical theory have demonstrated that reflective materials have a direct impact on the cognitive and psychological faculties. Visual perception, in particular, is critical for personality organisation, the development of the I, and identity formation.

French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist Jacques Lacan described this phenomenon in his famous psychoanalytic theory of the mirror stage, arguing that at the moment of an infant’s encounter with the mirror, with mother’s verbal affirmation, a misrecognised unity occurs, indicating a fundamental split between the self as experienced and as imagined, forming the ego as a fiction. [5]
American feminist philosopher Judith Butler later criticised gender identity as performative, claiming that identity categories are produced and maintained by repetition, Gender is in no way a stable identity or locus of agency from which various acts proceed; rather, it is an identity tenuously constituted in time-an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts. [6]
This creates an open space to ponder on the philosophical view of the reflective objects of this essay as transmitters of fluid, shifting identities, in addition to their aesthetic reflective surface.


Herman Hermsen, Be aware! Watch your back!, Pendant necklace, 2023, glass blind spot mirrors, computer hard disk, metal mirror, chain.
Image Credit: Courtesy of the Artist ©.


Herman Hermsen, a Dutch artist and professor, is widely recognised for his multifaceted approach to jewellery, which incorporates icons and imagery from popular culture. Hermsen’s interest lies in reinventing the traditional language of jewellery, and to this end, he incorporates novel technological and aesthetic methods, which he sometimes demonstrates in an intriguing or provocative way. He often works with clean, minimalist lines, as exemplified by his Be aware! Watch your back! pendant necklace, 2023.

These layered readymades challenge and even disrupt visual perception and spatial relationships on many levels. The superimposed elements of the composition and their leaning arrangement open up multiple viewpoints and reflective angles of perceptual reference. We may view these layered readymades as complex transmitters of metaphorical experiences that reflect our encounters with the self, as well as our perceptions of time, space and interactions.


Marc Monzó, Fire, Brooch, 2009, 18k gold.
Image Credit: Courtesy of the Artist ©.


Reductive formalism and Bauhaus concepts inform Barcelona-based artist Marc Monzó's minimalist and conceptual designs, which he implements with geometric precision and modular craftsmanship. The artist reduces forms to their quintessence, often using geometric forms and delicate lines, while drawing, an integral part of his practice, serves as the primary reflective medium for materialising inspiration. Monzó channels his interest in reductive forms through the strategic use of reflective materials that emphasise perception and light. He often manipulates golden surfaces through shade, contrast, proportion, and layout. His Fire brooch, 2009, in an analogous line, purifies the essence of flame into a minimalist, geometric form, subtly referencing a loose contemporary abstraction. Fire's associations with transition, destruction, and regeneration are juxtaposed with the preciousness of gold, which in a manner may inspire concepts of shifting identities and transformation. The brooch exemplifies Monzó's approach, which values simplicity, craftsmanship and concept.
Daniel Kruger, Pendant, Necklace, 2013, Silver, copper. 65 x 65 x 45 mm,
Image Credit: Courtesy of the Artist ©.


Daniel Kruger, a celebrated South African artist based in Germany, combines ethnographic elements with historical ornamentation to create wearable objets d'art, appropriating the aesthetic jewellery language and traditional techniques. Kruger’s inventive style exhibits endless fantasy, resulting in a diverse flair for expressive, textural, sculptural, and materialist-orientated work. His creations encompass a technically masterful curiosity and an idiosyncratic modern personal style, focusing on themes of identity, beauty, ornament, and the body. In some instances, he employs reflective surfaces, as with his Pendant necklace, 2013, which aligns with this concept. Crafted from silver and copper, the pendant features a concave copper centre adorned with his famous revival filigree technique, recontextualised through meticulous soldering. The illusionistic depth provokes sensory engagement, fostering associations about layered identities and the body's presence in the moment. The Pendant exhibits Kruger's longstanding enquiries on diverse disciplines situated through a sensorial and philosophical scope.

We should also mention in this category, Japanese designer Yurina Kira and her optical jewellery tools for engagement, reciprocal influence and environmental sensitivity, as well as American artist Biba Schutz's reflective jewellery surfaces that question spatial and urban interactions while stimulating body and sensory awareness.


Contemporary Jewellery as a Return to Embodiment and Light
The preceding discussion leads us to another point& of acknowledging these jewellery objects as sensory extensions of the body, or artefacts of embodiment. According to the embodiment theory, cognition, perception, and meaning are the outcome of lived, sensory experience. Contemporary thinkers propose that the mind and body are fundamentally connected, as articulated by French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty, who proposes that, The body is the vehicle of being in the world, and having a body is, for a living creature, to be involved in a definite environment, to identify oneself with certain projects... [7]

Reflective materials in jewellery activate human faculties, heightening the wearer's awareness of their presence and movement, as well as the fluidity of their self-image and interactivity in space. In his chapter Body in the seminal volume Contemporary Jewelry in Perspective, published with Art Jewelry Forum, 2013, art historian and editor Damian Skinner sees the body as offering contemporary jewellery meaning and as an active collaborator and display in its production, from the body of the artist and the embodied practice, [8] to its functions and the embodied wearability, and reception, proposing that Arguably the body is the most challenging site in and on which to appreciate any artistic object, because on a living display there’s little ability to control the conditions of presentation and reception. The space of the body complicates perception but activates objects in a transformative way. [9]
 
Swiss interdisciplinary artist and professor of Art and Design Christoph Zellweger positions his practice at the intersection of artificial science and adornment. Zellweger’s critical engagement on themes related to the body, identity, and medical aesthetics, is grounded in the theoretical underpinnings of posthumanism while experimenting with various mediums.


Fluids, Foreign Bodies series 2002, Medical stainless steel, Photo by: Christoph Zellweger.
Image Credit: Courtesy of the Artist ©.


The work Fluids, 2002, from his Foreign Bodies enquiry, made with high-polished medical-grade steel, invoke prosthetic implants or hidden body fluids, and the potential wearability inside the body, while also exhibit the technical advancement and mastery involved in the utilisation of the medium. Fluids thus challenge stable notions about identity, body modification, and boundaries between the natural and the artificial. As Zellweger informs us on the issue through his interview given to Roberta Bernabei, researcher in Craft, Design, and Jewellery, 2011, jewellery may gradually leave behind, the stage of being an accessory, in the sense of an appendage or annex, to potentially become an integrated component of man. [10]

Again, we might consider the extent to which these reflective materials engage at an embodiment level. Art historian Barbara Maria Stafford, in her book, Visual Analogy: Consciousness as the Art of Connecting, 2001, proposes the concept of analogical seeing as a foundational mode of consciousness that spans affect, intuition, and cognition. Stafford argues that this mode enables us to see connections between disparate things and create meaning through visual and embodied experience. She combines art history, neuroscience, and media theory to use light as metaphorical and perceptual connective tissue that visually and intellectually integrates various images, thoughts, and experiences, making invisible relations visible and embodied, as she argues, Analogy is a demonstrative or evidentiary practice putting the visible into relationship with the invisible and manifesting the effect of that momentary unison…, analogy synthesise the vast quantities of chaotic data with which we are increasingly inundated, but how, time and again, it stitches our mutable, compound selves into a single self in periods of consciousness. [11]
 
Evert Nijland, Imagine riflessa, (edition 2) Necklace, 2006, glass, silver nitrate, silver, textile.
Photo by Eddo Hartmann.Image Credit: Courtesy of the Artist ©.


Acclaimed Dutch artist Evert Nijland, creates thought-provoking contemporary jewellery inspired by Baroque and Rococo ornamental lexicons and archetypal imagery. His approach encompasses a virtuoso manipulation of materials such as silver, porcelain, wood and glass. His work often refers to beauty, memory, perception, and transience, with reflection unfolding through multiple interpretants. Nijland's Imagine Riflessa, 2006, necklace exhibits his studies using mirror-like surfaces and organic forms that reference themes of reflection, identity, embodiment and perception. Echoes of vanitas symbolism and classical imagery are reinterpreted through the combination of historical ornamentation with contemporary aesthetics. The piece invites interaction between the wearer and the beholder, as well as introspection and enquiring about the ephemeral nature of beauty. On another level, the object integrates concepts of embodiment by making the wearer’s reflected image an integral, shifting part of the artwork, turning the act of wearing into a sensory dialogue between body, reflection, and adornment. The piece exemplifies Nijland’s fusion of craft, concept, and cultural memory.

Laurel Fulton, Non Functioning Brooch I, 2023, Sterling silver, lens, acrylic, steel.
Image Credit: Courtesy of the Artist ©.


American artist Laurel Fulton’s artistic practice involves an inquiry into sensorial connection, tools or apparatuses. Subjective communication and metaphorical gaps are echoed in her work through optical reflection, distortion and materiality in the between spaces, as invoked in her conceptual Non Functioning Brooch 1, 2023.



Shachar Cohen, Reflective Venus, Reflective Idols series, Pendant Necklace, 2016, Stainless steel.
Photo by: Mirei Takeuchi, Image Credit: Courtesy of the Artist ©.


Noteworthy of acknowledgement are also the jewellery contributions of Israeli artist Shachar Cohen's Reflective Idols series, 2016, which are constructed of highly polished stainless steel and resemble primordial fertility figures transformed into unique embodied talismans.


The Marvelous Reflective Object: Mirrors, Optics, Material and Meaning
Since reflective materials and the act of seeing are the principal focus of this essay, I would like to briefly refer at this point to some related key events, scientific breakthroughs, and philosophical underpinnings. Ancient Egyptian polished bronze, copper, or silver mirrors, associated with the goddess Hathor, a potent personification of beauty, divinity, and the soul, are among the earliest examples in the history of material culture. In most of the cases, ancient Greco-Roman mirrors were metal and can be categorised as convex spherical and concave spherical, principally used for grooming and philosophical attainment.

The philosophical discourse on reflection was especially prominent in ancient Greece, as Plato used the metaphors of the mirror and mimesis in his epistemological writings. In Plato’s Republica, for instance, Socrates critiques mimetic art, including painting and poetry, for being imitative and far removed from truth, and extols the properties of reflecting surfaces like water and mirrors, arguing that if you are willing to carry a mirror, you can act as a thaumastos anȇr, a miracle worker, having the ability to rapidly imitate/reproduce almost everything, e.g. plants and animals, humans, the sun, earth and heaven, the gods and the underworld. [12]

This historical and cultural background influenced scientific developments in the field of optics during the Middle Ages, among them Alhazen's foundational visual cone theory in the 11^th century, and later Johannes Kepler's identification of image formation on the retina in the 16^th century, and René Descartes' theory of light and interpretation of rainbows by refraction in 1637. Ultimately, Isaac Newton demonstrated in his book Opticks, 1704, that white light encompasses all spectral colours, an insight that forever changed art and science.

In the modern period, Venice’s Murano mirrors are among the masterpieces of the blown and flattened crystalline glass. Famous and exquisite gilded Venetian mirrorwork in the verre églomisé tradition evolved into a mystical craftsmanship already established by the Venetian glassmakers on Murano Island from 1255 onwards.

During Renaissance humanism, mirrors were associated with the contemporary notion of the unlimited universe, as opposed to the circular mediaeval worldview represented by sacred and Neoplatonic texts and mediaeval iconography.

In the 15^th century, German cardinal and philosopher Nicholas de Cusa investigated specular vision and the notion that mirrors reveal images, as well as truths about perception and self-awareness According to the Platonic tradition a mirror always plays the role of mediator in a system of analogies and hierarchies… it was no longer considered the only link between the sensory and the intellectual; the mirror’s place between God and the world, gives meaning to the cosmos and is shared with man, who is capable of differentiating and opposing. This new philosophical movement sets out to imagine opposites, beyond the network of affinities and correspondences. [13]

During the reign of King Louis XIV (1643–1715) and decades of French industrial espionage on the safeguarded Venetian monopoly on the craft of mirrors, the Royal Saint-Gobain Company in Paris broke the cycle by developing cast plate glass, which had grown to enormous proportions.

Their dissemination within the bourgeois households and civic architecture demonstrated the technological advancement and a cultural transition towards visibility, individuality, and decorum. Murano's radiant crystalline glass and the opulent salons of Saint-Gobain illustrated how mirrors served as both artefacts and instruments of contemporary civic identity.


Katoptric Science and Reflective Adornment
Contemporary jewellery artists have recontextualised optical devices for vision, transforming them into novel modes of image production and reflection that challenge human perception in unexpected ways. Maria Gerolemou, in her essay Plane and Curved Mirrors in Classical Antiquity, 2020, examines the theory of katopric anomism, which emphasises how mirror configurations in classical antiquity created illusions or deceptive images that distorted reality and were used as visual moral lessons, Deformed catoptric images are often depicted by ancient authors either as examples of misusing mirror- technology, which highlights the moral decadence of the user, or as evidences of the metaphysical power of mirrors, which help the viewer to transcend the medium’s physical boundaries and, for instance, gaze upon the unseen divine. [14]

The examination of katoptric anomism provides an understanding of the intricate relationship of technology, perception, and cultural interpretation of images in historical contexts.


Jiro Kamata, WG Spiegel Necklace, 2021, camera lens, rose-gold coating, PVD coating, 18K palladium white gold.
Image Credit: Courtesy of the Artist ©.


Jiro Kamata, a Japanese artist, is widely recognised for his complex methodology that integrates traditional craftsmanship, material experimentation, and technology. Kamata deconstructs everyday objects like optical lenses and dichroic mirrors into compelling, conceptual jewellery which manipulate perception and the subject's relationship to spatial dynamics, resulting also in a cross-reference into multiple disciplines.

His WG Spiegel Necklace, 2021, is a remarkable example of optical technology, that plays with the concepts of perception, memory and reflection. The piece exhibits Kamata’s broader interest in capturing personal moments and light through materiality, whereas the distorted and fragmented imagery produced challenges through illusionism, which transforms adornment into an optical and philosophical inquiry.
Michael Berger, KAS FP-03, Kinetic Brooch, 2023, Stainless steel, dichroic glass, micro ball bearings.
Image Credit: Courtesy of the Artist ©.


German artist Michael Berger is a master of kinetic jewellery, commited to continuing the legacy of postwar studio jewellery and kinetic art, influenced by his apprenticeship under Friedrich Becker. Influenced and informed by minimalism, Bauhaus and engineering precision, Berger reinterprets jewellery as interactive sculpture, through the incorporation of kinetic lenses. His Kinetic Brooch KAS FP-03, 2023, illustrates this legacy and concept. Constructed from stainless steel and dichroic glass, it incorporates micro ball bearings for smooth, regulated motion. The brooch's dynamic form, dichroos colour effect and reflections haptically engage both the eye and the touch, encouraging contact. Its content lies in transition, form in motion reflects the viewer's perception and gentle prompt for presence.


Ottchil and Urushi Lacquers as a Surface of Embodiment
Ottchil and urushi high-polished lacquers, rooted in Korean and Japanese traditions respectively, possess tactile surfaces which invoke intimacy and time-based interaction. Because of their multilayered and labour-intensive nature, these lacquers act as temporal optical devices, expressing ideas of time and care. This brings to mind Merleau-Ponty’s observation that perception is embodied and relational, To perceive is to render oneself present to something through the body; it is to inhabit it. [15]
Lacquer surfaces thus invite a haptic gaze that allows you to sense and dwell within them, in contrast to mirrors that reflect the exterior world back to the viewer. In contemporary jewellery, this approach creates a counterpoint between the performative function of mirrors and lacquer’s shifting of focus to inner resonance.
Heejoo Kim, Lunar Blossom, Necklace, 2023, electroformed copper, Ottchil (traditional natural lacquer), sterling silver.
Image Credit: Courtesy of the Artist ©.


Heejoo Kim, a Korean artist, reinterprets traditional crafts through modern aesthetics, vibrant coloured enamels, and a general exploitation on materials.Drawing from ideas of the collective unconscious, life, nature, identity and time, she occasionally uses reflective materials. Kim's Lunar Blossom, 2023, series features work that mixes electroformed copper with classic Ottchil Korean lacquer, producing an idyllic lunar environment. Her jewellery operates as intimate topographies, where universal narratives, materiality and metaphor intersect in a way of meditative self-exploration and interaction on multiple levels. As Liu Xiao and Li Puman suggest in their book Contemporary Jewelry, Thoughts on Inspiration and Expression, 2014, Contrasting complexity, including combinations of familiarity and unfamiliarity, tranquillity and fear, passivity and activity, all evolving, is what Kim contains in her jewels. [16]


Fumiko Gotô, SORAMAME 07GHCAR, WAGASHI series, Brooch, 2019, Hand-carved buffalo horn, South Sea pearl, carnelian, silver.925,
Image Credit: Courtesy of the Artist ©.


Traditional Japanese symbols and artefacts inspire Swiss-based artist Fumiko Gotô, who combines a sculpture-oriented practice with meticulously created ornament. Her ritualistic hand carving extends beyond crafting to incorporate a micro-sculptural trace of gesture, acting as a phenomenological vessel of worn thought, intimacy, and memory. Gotô thoroughly chooses her materials, like buffalo horn, Japanese urushi lacquer, pearls, and gemstones, to convey intrinsic histories, interconnections, and metaphors for flora and fauna. Her SORAMAME 07GHCAR brooch challenges ornamental assumptions with a combination of materials, colours, contrasts, and technique, including a hand-carved buffalo horn, a South Sea pearl, and carnelian. The lacquer's radiance harmonises its gastronomic connections with Wagashi Japanese sweets and its proportional architectural size variation.


Epilogue
Reflective materials have been exploited by contemporary jewellery artists as multifaceted instruments that challenge perception, materialise cognition, and anchor embodied experiences, in addition to their aesthetic appeal. Ancient civilisations have used reflective mirrors and materials throughout history to gain philosophical insight and wisdom. Duchampian blind spot mirrors, reflective materials, medical-grade steel, optical devices, and ottchil and urushi lacquers exemplify how these diachronic and mystical materials bridge the visible and the invisible, the surface and the essence, and the external and the internal.

The jewellery artefacts addressed in this study illustrate the reflective surface as a locus of intellectual exploration, cultural memory, and intimate engagement, thereby enchanting awareness and presence.
Jewellery, through these objects, serves as a medium of adornment and expression, a realm where temporality, identity, and interaction converge. As optical technology advances, the potential for jewellery to examine human predicaments through light, reflection, and materiality also expands. Ultimately, mirrors in contemporary jewellery reflect the world and enhance our awareness of perception, connection, and our place within it.


Bibliography
- Bernabei, Roberta. 2011. Contemporary Jewellers, Interviews with European Artists, (Berg Publishers, United Kingdom).
- Bonnet, Sabine Melchior. 1994. The Mirror A History, ( Routledge Publishers, USA).
- Butler, Judith. 1999. Gender Trouble Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, ( Routledge Publishers, United Kingdom).
- Gerolemou, Maria, Diamantopoulou, Lilia and Contributors. 2020. Mirrors and Mirroring From Antiquity to the Early Modern Period, (Bloomsbury Publishing, United Kingdom).
- Lacan, Jacques. 1966. Écrits, (W. W. Norton & Company, USA).
- Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. 1964. The Primacy of Perception, (Northwestern University Press, USA).
- Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. 2005. Phenomenology of Perception, (Taylor and Francis, United Kingdom).
- Ovid, Metamorphoses, trans. by Melville, A., D., 1986., Book 3, lines 403–510, (Oxford University Press) https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0028%3Abook%3D3%3Acard%3D403
[accessed 5 May 2025].
- Skinner, Damian, and Art Jewelry Forum. 2013. Contemporary Jewelry in Perspective, (Lark Jewelry&Beading, New York, United States).
- Stafford, Barbara-Maria, 2001.Visual Analogy: Consciousness as the Art of Connecting, (The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA).
- Xiao, Liu and Puman, Li. 2014. Contemporary Jewelry, Thoughts on Inspiration and Expression, (CYPI Press, United Kingdom).


Notes
1. Ovid, Book III, trans. by Melville1986: 403-510.
2. Bonnet 2014:35.
3. Bonnet 2014:35.
4. Gerolemou and Diamantopoulou 2020:2.
5. Lacan 1966:76.
6. Butler 1999:25.
7. Ponty 2002: 169.
8. Skinner 2013: 67.
9. Skinner 2013: 67.
10. Bernabei 2011: 228.
11. Stafford 2001:24, 179.
12. Plato, 596d–e in Gerolemou: 158.
13. Bonnet 2014:115.
14. Gerolemou 2020: 157.
15. Ponty 2005:16.
16. Xiao and Puman 2014: 44.
 

About the author

Sotiria Vasileiou is a visual artist and jewellery maker with an academic background in art history. She holds a BA and MA in Art History from the Open University UK. Her skill set includes traditional and modern artistic practices, with a particular area of research on 19th-century fashion and crafts and, more recently, contemporary art and crafts. She has a Certificate from the Technical School of Goldsmiths in Athens and has apprenticed next to several prominent Greek goldsmiths. Her practice entails an exploration of materials, which she transforms and synthesises through artisanal work and contemporary design. She employs a multifaceted method that includes art history, fashion, material culture, and jewellery history to explore topics of identity, experience, value, and aesthetics. She has also contributed to the local art scene in her hometown of Kalamata by creating exhibition catalogues.

Mail: info@sotiriavasileiou.com
Website: https://info@sotiriavasileiou.com/
Instagram: @sotiria_vasileiou_jewellery