Suzy Weir MDes

Bio

Suzy Weir MDes studied industrial design at Pratt Institute, New York, Royal Institute of Copenhagen, University of Technology Sydney, Australia, and at The Art Students League NY. With 25 years of jewellery making practice in Sydney in a charming shopfront gallery and workshop, she gives private classes in silver casting. The wearable sculpture of Suzy Weir MDes, hand-carved wax, cast into noble metals, is embedded with ancient symbols from the visual language of diverse cultures.

Statement

Having emigrated to Australia from New York, I am a descendant of Armenian diaspora survivors, and therein lies a certain joy for how people come together. When we are living in foreign lands, both differences and similarities of our cultures connect us. Inspired by the late Uruguay sculptor, Gonzalo Fonseca, I find my current work to be channeling him both in the way that he chooses not to overwork his stone but rather to venerate the way it is found in the earth. And in his simple familiar forms that, like hieroglyphs, chronicle our shared human experience. This is most evident in my “B O A T” series where you find shapes that refer to nautical symbolism in an assemblage of parts, and with raw natural gemstones placed sympathetically into the wrought metal.

I interpret human nature and codes of our cultures into wearable objects. In the process of translating an idea, I prototype different methods of marrying materials, yielding to the raw state of a precious gemstone or nobel metal. As a sailor I find inspiration in nautical symbols and universal codes.

I teach jewellery making every weekday in my studio. Using the Bauhaus method of design learning, I find the student’s creativity and help them to further develop their own voice and to create original objects of art.