Between Tides: Jewellery by Alan Preston

Remarks

The New Dowse and Auckland Museum are major collectors of Alan’s work. Avid Gallery is his Wellington outlet and in Auckland both Fingers and Masterworks exhibit Alan’s work.
In 2006 Alan was the first recipient of the Deane Award for Decorative Arts which is open to all New Zealanders and includes (among other things) a $10,000 award to support the creation of innovative new work.
Alan has won the Best Craft Design at the DINZ Best Design Awards in 1992, a Creative Development Grant from the QEII Arts Council in 1993 and a Presentation, Promotion & Audience Development Grant from Creative NZ in 2007.
The touring show of Preston’s work has been at the Dowse and the Southland Museum and most recently at the Sarjeant in Wanganui. It moves to the Auckland Museum from March 2009.
 

Damian Skinner is one of New Zealand's best known art writers. His recent books include a monograph on Don Binney and a major work on the art of Maori carving. Alan Preston was among the vanguard of contemporary jewellers who, in the early 1980s, took a gentle, under-the-radar craft and elevated it into the realm of art. As one of the founders of the pioneering jewellery collective Fingers, he made jewellery that adapted Pacific materials and motifs, capturing and leading the zeitgeist. Magnificently crafted and backed by an intellectually articulated vision, his pieces have always been coveted and collected.