In our present world, an important thing is to be perfect online on social media with every means to an end. Interview with Kirsten Plank by Anna Wójcik-Korbas

Your works are intriguing with the mathematical ordering of the elements and structures that make up the whole work. Where does your passion for geometrical forms come from?
I think it was born at the beginning of my metamorph works, many years ago, when I tried to connect jewellery and its packaging. I remembered jewellery cases and their forms: always boxes like cuboids, balls, cylinders…I divided these geometrical forms and arranged them in different order to change their function. Then, folding paper, I found new ways and forms to create compounds, but every kind of folding is geometrical, too. So, I think geometry accompanied me for a very long time.


The elements of your works form in puzzles – it’s a kind of play with form, but one that requires a lot of experience and precision. Where did the idea for this kind of jewellery construction come from?
It was a period process, that evolves the puzzles. The very first step perhaps has been a school project, where we had to divide pictures into shades of colours by lines, to colour the inner part in another way like before. I chose an image of a face and framed the light and darker boundaries. This must have been kept at the back of my mind. Further, I have a weakness in Picasso’s cubistic way: dividing and after then the “abnormal” connecting to get new perceptions. The most interesting for me is, that after each step of a procedure, you never know the result, so all follows the current intuition.



Portraits and animal motifs occupy a special place in your collections. Why are you choosing these motifs and whom do you depict in your works?
The animal pieces are the result of searching for geometrical order in our nature. So I found for example the compound eye of the bee or the carapace of a turtle…

The faces are my centrepiece at the moment. I am very interested in humans and their backgrounds with their hidden emotions and stories, perhaps broken, vulnerable or lonely behind the surface. In our present world, an important thing is to be perfect online on social media with every means to an end. Personality and individuality disappear. It is a time-critical and personal statement against things in our time they got more and more stimulated and superficial. Some faces are unknown persons, and some are portraits of friends, for example, JÜRGEN R.I.P.


Kirsten Plank, Growth necklace-puzzle, Silver, pigment, 2017. Photo by PB Group

Alternative view

 
Bold, vivid colours are a characteristic element of your jewellery. What is the significance of colour in your work?
I am a colourful person, I like diversity. You can express yourself a lot by wearing colours or colouring something. Colours are influencing our well-being and are kept in remembrance. Almost I can´t do anything in black.
The pigments I use in my works and their evolving energy, matt without being noisy are my favourite medium in combination and in contrast to metal and upcycled materials.


>> Check here all artworks by Kirsten Plank featured at Klimt02

>> Check here the Exhibition Catalogue


Thank you for the conversation.


Kirsten Plank, Legnica Jewellery Festival SILVER, Gallery of Art in Legnica

 

About the Interviewee

Kirsten Plank, born 1974 in Straubing (Germany) goldsmith artist, a graduate of the University of Design in Pforzheim (Germany), member of the Bavarian Association of Artists, the Bavarian Association of Applied Arts (BKV) and from 2010 to 2015 also of the Jewellery Art Concept (JAC). She has participated in many exhibitions, winning numerous awards. Her achievements include the Symbols III Award (2001), participation in the Danner-Stiftung exhibition (2002), the Platin Gilde International Award (2006), participation in the Debutantes Promotion of the Free State of Bavaria (2008), the Inhorgenta Europe Innovation Award (2010), the FormArt Gedok – Bundesprize (2015), the award of the Gallery of Art in the 29th International Jewellery Competition “Still Human?” (2021), Charon Kransen award in the 2022 PARADOX Budapest Jewellery Week (2022). Since 2014 she runs a jewellery atelier in Deggendorf.

About the author

Anna Wójcik-Korbas, coordinator of the Legnica Jewellery Festival SILVER. She works in the Gallery of Art in Legnica (Poland) since 2018. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in the history of art from the University of Silesia in Katowice (Poland). She's a member of the International Amber Association, and a member of the editorial team of the Amber Magazine.