Interview with Jorge Gil

Do you think that jewellery is being standardized? What is there of local and universal in your artistic work?
I do think so.  If we consider all jewellery we daily observe, forming part of the human race, I do think that jewellery continues being standardized, having been transferred for generations and having been repeated as a constant return to its origin.  But if we in the same time believe in the references and dreams materialized by colleagues participating in Klimt02, then we will be presented when new and promising visions will break with the established.

What do you expect when exposing your work to the public (for example with an exhibition)?
Always a sort of shock invades when I expose some of my pieces, although in general I think the public is not yet ready to erase centuries of traditional jewellery from their memory. I think that my pieces only can be valued by those who can understand them.

Are other areas besides the jewellery, present in your work?
Of course. When translating many of my jewellery pieces  - those who I fell in love with -  its format of 3 centimeters and overrating it to 3 meters, we would be facing large sculptures that could be located anywhere. It is therefore that I sometimes also make sculptures in bronze and other materials such as glass, steel and methacrylate of a more huge volume.

The last work, book, film, city that has moved me was...
Usually when the limited time allows me, I read poetry, because it holds the principles I defend in my work. I can travel through poems without a passport.

A place, space, country whose creativity surprises me...
The untouched nature that unfolds in front of my balcony, that small landscape with a river located in my city Havana, surprises me every morning when the sun decides to peek into the world, that experience satisfies me more than applying a visa to distant countries.

Is there any designer, jeweller, artist, you appreciate a lot?
It would be a long list from Cellini, Calder and Brancusi until the present day, somehow all showed me the way.
 
What piece or work has given you the most satisfaction?
 Those where patience and inventiveness tested my intention to develop me to what I consider myself, an experimenter with gifts of the new traditional jewellery. The first form had other forms as a consequence, transforming them into series.
 
Do you read Jewellery Magazines? What is your source to get information?
Unfortunately they are not within my reach here in Cuba, neither do I chase them elsewhere, unless the ones who are interested in my work and want to publish it. I rather draw and sketch during the time I could spent on internet searching information, besides I must confess that I don´t know how to switch on a computer.
 
Do you discuss your work with other jewellery artists or any other person?
Sometimes when running into colleagues here, and more regularly with clients who are interested in my work, when showing their curiosity about how the piece was made.
 
What is your first thought when you hear the word Future?, What do you expect for?
I look forward to a new renaissance generally in arts, and what would finish many things that somehow are dealing with a sort of hysterical technology in these days,  where we all think we have the attitude to do anything and everything, and it is not like that, because we contaminate ourselves with many stereotypes derived from these practices. If we don't let our hands work, which made the man a giant, we will lose the ability that only hands are able to translate; our thoughts into real works of art.


>> versión de la entrevista en castellano