studio2017

Shimara was born in a remote coastal area in West Cork, Southern Ireland.
A childhood fascination for collecting shells, stones, mermaids purses’, feathers and pods found along the sea shore has been the inspiration for her work.

Repetition is all around us, in music, language and nature but it is specifically the repetition in nature that
interests me, from the intricacies of “the golden ratio” and Fibonacci sequence to simply the way in which
they grow and flower.

The uncontrolled patterns and movements within the spatial and structural planes with which we live have greatly influenced my making.

I am fascinated by natural form such as the sphere or circle. Much of my past and current work has incorporated such shapes. It seems second nature to me. Whenever I set out to sketch a design, a circular shape appears before my eyes, as if my mind had no control over my hands actions.

The curious, curvaceous shape that has no start or finish, no angles or edges speaks of so many mysteries. What lies within, what exists on the other side?

The journey of experimentation when creating is just as important as the arrival to the destination of the finished work.

The jewellery I make is a gestalt, a symbolic configuration or pattern of elements. My work begins with mark making. The drawings are set in a moment and are a direct personal, expression changing according to the moment in which they are made. The style of my jewellery is an aesthetic artefact of my urban landscape and become objects for contemplation. Abstracted from their origin these calligraphic forms are free floating signifiers shifting in significance from one gaze to the next. Using jewellery to reflect these ideas I make claim to new space; the body, my body, the viewer’s body and the space that the body moves through.

The Royalty Series is a reflective, large contradiction of intricately detailed, expensive pieces that depict wealth and status. Lisa takes a playful, light hearted approach towards this while still enabling herself to create a functional, wearable series of work. A simplistic mass produced series combined with a playful whim.

Nothing in life is a coincidence, although when I started to work in metal I thought it was.

Not anymore, metal for me is like my skin, I can feel it, sense it, it speaks to me. This is why I love making.

To me all the processes are an adventure, melting, bending, hammering, connecting it all together, and in the end I encounter a piece that has become “alive”.

When I began, it was a pleasure for me. Although soon I realised that I had to share it. It was hard at first, giving away what seemed like a part of myself, a part of my heart. That’s why I make jewellery now. For the people that really value that part of me that I have let go, and appreciate that piece of life I have given.

If you ask me what my favourite tool would be, what inspires me, what makes me do what I do, I could only say metal, and more importantly, silver.

The freedom is being able to choose within the infinite spectrum of process, allowing me to be myself and put my heart into everything that I do.

I have always been fascinated by diamond forms, the facets, the reflection of light and their status in terms of monetary value. Therefore, I decided to recreate them in other materials, originally non-precious materials such as rubber and resin but now using silver has given me a lot more freedom to create the faceted form. The ‘diamonds’ I made originally were from flat sheet that were scored, folded, and soldered to form the individual pieces. I am now fly pressing them from sheet thus simplifying the technique. By creating these faceted forms the wearer manages to see the pieces from different angles and they catch the light in a similar yet more simplified way than the precious stones known as diamonds.

I have been working with the imagery from old biscuit tins and tin trays for a few years now and I enjoy being able to use a material with which I am familiar and that is traditionally associated with jewellery – metal – but that also has the ability to tell a graphic story through words and pictures.

Alice enjoys working with colour to convey positive emotions and attitudes. She enjoys the brightness that laminate brings to jewellery, evoking scenarios and sensations, from a 1950’s kitchen with bakelite and tupperware, the feelings of comfortablesurroundings or even just the simple emotion happiness.