Total Stahl. Stahlschmuckpreis IV

Ingenious – Steel jewellery

Large scaffolding, steel girders, structural engineering, reinforced concrete and mechanical engineering – probably the first images that flash through one’s mind when talking about ‘steel’. That this material can indeed be used as tracery in the composition of jewellery or design seems a rather impossible endeavour. On the contrary.

The fourth competition featuring steel as a material in art and jewellery design, which was initiated by the Kolloquium Nordrhein Westfalen to promote the artistic and creative use of steel as a material, held in the department of metal design in the HAWK University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Hildesheim, is a case in point.

The results are sensational: extremely diverse pieces of jewellery and small-scale sculpture, which exploit the brittle hardness of the material or are made despite of this characteristic, emerged. On the one hand you would find the powerful bowl object by Hiawatha Seiffert, who forged motorcycle chains into thin layers and joined them onto one another in an intensely exciting way, the raw surface of the structure lending the object an ornamentation of exceptional allure. On the other hand, the brooch by the prize-winner Thanh-Truc Nguyen, which through the finely woven red and blue painted stainless-steel webbing radiates a refreshingly light transparency, conveys another aesthetic sensation.

The publication of the Stahlschmuckpreis [Steel Jewellery Award] 2011 presents works from the four prize winners as well as from students and graduates and is enhanced with works from established artists, who complement the panoply and the possibilities of designing in steel. In addition, personal descriptions of the artists’ works enrich the illustrations, allowing the viewer a glimpse into the personal motifs and minds of each of the artists and their objects.