Jeremy Isamu Irvin

Bio

Jeremy Isamu Irvin is a contemporary jewelry artist and educator based out of Ellensburg, Washington. He received his BA in Economics from Seattle Pacific University and his MFA in Jewelry & Metals Design from Central Washington University. His work is an investigation of process, melding acrylic and gold leaf with traditional silversmithing. He has exhibited nationally, appearing in the Society of North American Goldsmith’s 2019 Jewelry and Metals Survey publication as well as the Museum of Arts and Design’s prestigious 2021 MAD About Jewelry exhibition.
 

Statement

Jeremy Isamu Irvin’s work is based on the hybridization of convention and progress. He fell in love with jewelry while learning silversmithing; the ritual of making objects according to tradition and the reverence given to process and technique are integral to him as a maker. However, he sees his work as more than a perpetuation of tradition, but rather an expansion of jewelry’s potential.

Irvin’s jewelry incorporates nontraditional materials with conventional silversmithing techniques to bridge the past with the present. His current body of work utilizes acrylic and Richlite, a recycled paper composite. Combinations of these two form the fronts of pieces in this series, what viewers most easily see, while cold connected silver forms the backside of each piece, a conceptual and physical framework.

Acrylic is plastic, a modern material often associated with cheapness and disposability. However, by carving, gilding, and polishing it to emphasize reflections and translucency, it becomes elevated and precious, providing optical effects unable to be easily achieved with traditional jewelry media. Paper is a material that was historically revered in many cultures, and which is integral to many forms of fine art. When it is used and discarded, it loses many of these associations. However, by carving and utilizing a material created out of this refuse in jewelry, it is converted once more, recontextualized back into a precious setting.
 

CV