Pia David: PXL-MAD School of Arts. Selected Graduate 2018
Published: 23.09.2018
Pia's critical, yet humoristic jewellery collection questions the way we present ourselves on Instagram, and the way this changes our perceived social status and world-view. She recreates some of the most widely used types of images on Instagram in real-life, using meticulous and time-consuming manual techniques. Deceptive trompe-l’oeil effects make the jewellery appear different in images from what they are in reality. A second, more thorough look is necessary to spot the deception. Through her jewellery, she comments on how we spend a lot of our precious time creating a picture-perfect, superficial online profile, while hiding the true depths of our everyday reality. / Dr. Tine De Ruysser
PXL-MAD School of Arts, Hasselt, Belgium.
The Project @jewelleryli(k)es is the result of Pia David's search for a visual language, in the form of jewellery, of the modern social lie as found on social media such as Instagram.
For centuries, jewellery was an important tool to recognize status. Red stones were only for the royals, the signet ring confirmed someone's identity, etc... The barriers of social classes in the western world were upheld by jewellery and subsequently played a major role in lying about status. Nowadays, the official rules on class and jewellery may have lapsed, but social lies are still omnipresent. Looking at social media such as Instagram, this principle is even magnified. Reality is literally filtered, photoshopped, and altered. The fleeting aspects of life are celebrated on this moment sharing app. The popular pictures, that keep millions scrolling, depict beauty, knowledge and the pleasures of life. This revival of vanitas has stimulated a new aesthetic. As jewellery is hardly without vanity, it too can be influenced by that same modernization of the social lie.
Instagram pictures have the tendency to play with our perception. Examples can be found in how we perceive someone or something or, for example, in how we perceive dimensionality in pictures. Therefore, every piece from the project @jewelleryli(k)es plays with Two-dimensionality up to some degree. A goodtrompe-l’oeil is worth everything. The clearest examples are a 2D brooch ‘Queen Brooch’ and the ring FLATerRing. Their form is based on archetypes of bulky jewellery. Realistically painted on brass plate, they are made to appear three-dimensional in a picture. The time-consuming process of painting a flat jewellery piece might seem in contrast with a fastmoving social platform such as Instagram. However, time is an essential part of the social lies we adorn ourselves with, especially on the ‘free’ kind of platform. Time is the one thing that nobody has enough of. Still, on virtual platforms, everybody seems to have too much of it. Profiles only filled with artificial ‘good times’ perpetuate the image of having a perfect life without downsides. The manual labour that was required for the @jewelleryl(k)es statement pieces like Government revokes Climate law and a moment of political courage illustrates this excess of time. Their shape refers to archetypical name-jewellery. The name in a name-necklace or birth-bracelet, which emphasises identity, has been replaced by loud but neutral statements. These big words and statements, that are usually borrowed, are a big phenomenon on Instagram. They don’t show an actual identity but what a user is about. The constant re-use and sampling of each other’s’ words and images resulted in archetypes of Instagram posts. The pieces pearly pidgeon, plantedfeet, narcissus and starry day are made by editing these archetypes. The square glass pieces are a cumulation of Instagram-clichés.
Next to time,trompe-l’oeil and archetypes, there are details within every piece referring to other ways of adorning an image on Instagram. Important to remember is that, even though the exterior of the social lie might have found some modernization based on Instagram, we still tell the same old lies. the work within @jewellerylikes is a new visual language that only counts for the current zeitgeist. Who knows how these lies will look like within a different context.
/ Pia David
More work and contacts:
Instagram: Pia David
Find out more about the courses at PXL-MAD School of Arts.
The Project @jewelleryli(k)es is the result of Pia David's search for a visual language, in the form of jewellery, of the modern social lie as found on social media such as Instagram.
For centuries, jewellery was an important tool to recognize status. Red stones were only for the royals, the signet ring confirmed someone's identity, etc... The barriers of social classes in the western world were upheld by jewellery and subsequently played a major role in lying about status. Nowadays, the official rules on class and jewellery may have lapsed, but social lies are still omnipresent. Looking at social media such as Instagram, this principle is even magnified. Reality is literally filtered, photoshopped, and altered. The fleeting aspects of life are celebrated on this moment sharing app. The popular pictures, that keep millions scrolling, depict beauty, knowledge and the pleasures of life. This revival of vanitas has stimulated a new aesthetic. As jewellery is hardly without vanity, it too can be influenced by that same modernization of the social lie.
Instagram pictures have the tendency to play with our perception. Examples can be found in how we perceive someone or something or, for example, in how we perceive dimensionality in pictures. Therefore, every piece from the project @jewelleryli(k)es plays with Two-dimensionality up to some degree. A goodtrompe-l’oeil is worth everything. The clearest examples are a 2D brooch ‘Queen Brooch’ and the ring FLATerRing. Their form is based on archetypes of bulky jewellery. Realistically painted on brass plate, they are made to appear three-dimensional in a picture. The time-consuming process of painting a flat jewellery piece might seem in contrast with a fastmoving social platform such as Instagram. However, time is an essential part of the social lies we adorn ourselves with, especially on the ‘free’ kind of platform. Time is the one thing that nobody has enough of. Still, on virtual platforms, everybody seems to have too much of it. Profiles only filled with artificial ‘good times’ perpetuate the image of having a perfect life without downsides. The manual labour that was required for the @jewelleryl(k)es statement pieces like Government revokes Climate law and a moment of political courage illustrates this excess of time. Their shape refers to archetypical name-jewellery. The name in a name-necklace or birth-bracelet, which emphasises identity, has been replaced by loud but neutral statements. These big words and statements, that are usually borrowed, are a big phenomenon on Instagram. They don’t show an actual identity but what a user is about. The constant re-use and sampling of each other’s’ words and images resulted in archetypes of Instagram posts. The pieces pearly pidgeon, plantedfeet, narcissus and starry day are made by editing these archetypes. The square glass pieces are a cumulation of Instagram-clichés.
Next to time,trompe-l’oeil and archetypes, there are details within every piece referring to other ways of adorning an image on Instagram. Important to remember is that, even though the exterior of the social lie might have found some modernization based on Instagram, we still tell the same old lies. the work within @jewellerylikes is a new visual language that only counts for the current zeitgeist. Who knows how these lies will look like within a different context.
/ Pia David
More work and contacts:
Instagram: Pia David
Find out more about the courses at PXL-MAD School of Arts.
Ring: Flat Ring, 2018
Brass, lacquer.
5 x 5 x 0.1 cm
From series: @Jewelleryli(k)es
Fake it till you make it! Do keep this aphorism in mind while looking at the project @jewelleryli(k)es. Within the project, jewellery is seen as a social lie inspired by Instagram as a (social) medium. Pia David plays with the idea that everything can be used as a part of the image. Instagram takes centre stage. The white lie lies in the analogue translation of the Instagram fake. This is expressed in three groups of work: painted two-dimensional jewellery, pieces with quotes for the sane and sensible and glass ‘filters’ as adornment for the world surrounding us.
#jewellerylikes #jewellerylies #contemporaryjewellery #piadavidjewellery #socialmediajewellery #instagrampretty #honestlife #flat #image #analogue #sociallie #statement #filter #socialmedium
© By the author. Read Klimt02.net Copyright.
Brooch: A moment of political courage, 2018
Gilded brass, steel.
5 x 7 cm
Photo by: Rob Claes
© By the author. Read Klimt02.net Copyright.
Necklace: Government revokes climate law, 2018
Gilded brass, silver.
10 x 7 cm
Photo by: Rob Claes
© By the author. Read Klimt02.net Copyright.
Set: Queen Brooch & FLATerRing, 2018
Brass, enamel paint, resin.
10 x 7 cm, 5 x 5 cm
Photo by: Rob Claes
Ring, brooch.
© By the author. Read Klimt02.net Copyright.
Necklace: Starryday A moment of political courage, 2018
Gilded brass, silver, printed micapaper, zirconia, glass.
7 x 7 cm
Photo by: Rob Claes
© By the author. Read Klimt02.net Copyright.
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