Jewellery

Aurore de Heusch loves to give jewellery a role, whether useful or useless. Whether it can be divided up or put together. A piece of jewellery that turns into two. Whether it turns over, unrolls, unhooks, you can have fun with it! She loves creating off-beat, fun pieces. She propels everyday items into a new role, giving them a second life or use. She knows no boundaries. Her course of action is to not have any!

A specialist in spun and woven paper jewelry, she has recently been working with a collective of women in Tangier, with whom she has created a collection, 100% Jewelry, made with caftan buttons. “Paper never ceases to surprise me. Its forms, composition and decomposition are infinite. Its colours multiply, as do its shapes. Its ephemeral nature is tinged with eternity. The pieces presented here connect, weave their way like imitation threads, now leaves, now feathers, tightrope walkers. They speak of me, they speak of you.” [Christine Keyeux, 2009]

Billie Van Nieuwenhuyzen (°02/09/1992) recently graduated as object & jewelry designer. Besides a jewelry designer she considers herself a maker and a material developer. Her interests lay in rethinking and reinventing waste material. With her recent project named EDELPLAST, she seeks the value of cable waste through concept, process and form.

EDELPLAST is a research project that explores the possibilities of reinventing cable waste into a new, precious material. With high-tech waste being a product of our fast paced throwaway lifestyle, I chose to hand weave the wires, a very slow and traditional technique. Through this contrast I am expressing critique concerning our consumer society. The flat woven surfaces are pressed and melted, followed by cutting techniques to create intricate patterns. The patterns can range from very graphic images to almost marble like patterns, researching when something might be seen as precious. Graduated as a jewellery designer and silversmith, the first objects made out of EDELPLAST material are jewellery pieces.

Designweek Budapest, 26th sept-29th oct 2016, Budapest (HU)

EXHIBITIONS/PROJECTS

Ghentmade @ Copacobana Festival, Gent (BE), 2016

De Invasie, ’t Eilandje Antwerpen (BE), 2016

Myths/TestDrive2016, Munich Jewellery Week ’16 (GE), 2016

Temporary Lane, Pop-up, Genk (BE), 2015

Week van het Ontwerpen, Budafabriek, Kortrijk (BE), 2015

MAD Exhibitionists, SIERAAD Art Fair, Amsterdam (NL), 2015

GLASS WOOD PLASTIC, SMAAKBA(A)R, Hasselt (BE), 2015

GRADUATIONSHOW’15, Marzee, Nijmegen (NL), 2015

Exit Extended, Multiple Pauwels/Spaenjers, Hasselt (BE) 2015

Exit Masters, Herckenrode kazerne, Hasselt (BE), 2015

MAD Exhibitionists, Munich Jewellery Week 2015, Munich (GE)

MeetyourMADch, MAD-Faculty, Hasselt (BE), 2014

EDUCATION

2014-2015

Master, Object & Jewellery Design, PXL-Mad Faculty Hasselt

2011-2014

Bachelor, Object & Jewellery Design, PXL-Mad Faculty Hasselt

PUBLICATIONS

‘De Invasie’ book – collection of the ‘ De Invasie 2016’ contestants

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50 best graduation projects 2015 – Kwintessens (design magazine)

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The shmuck experience (MAD Exhibitionists) – AUTOR Jewelry Magzine

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INTERNSHIP

2015

Design Studio PETlamp, Alvarez Catalan de Ocon, Madrid (ES)

Jennifer Elliot is Belgian-British and born in South-Africa. She grew up in the African bush and still considers Africa her true home, the place where she finds grounding. She currently travels between her home on the Kenyan coast and her base in Antwerp, the stylish city known for diamond and jewellery expertise.

She is the daughter of diamond and jewellery professionals but only recently decided she wanted to follow in her parents’ footsteps. It is from them she inherited the passion for gemstones and the dedication to craftsmanship.
Jennifer made it her mission to bring back the tradition of gifting jewellery as a symbol of life’s meaningful moments yet on the conditions of the modern customer.
We sometimes get so caught up in the day to day that we forget to celebrate the moments and the people who mean the most. The wonderful thing about jewellery is that it is the only gift which touches the heart and can be worn close to it every day.
The older Jennifer gets, the more she wants to wear her meaningful classics every day as a touch of sophistication with a special meaning. However, she struggled finding brands which offered uncompromised quality in her contemporary style: refined & classic but with a personal touch. When training to become a certified gemologist, she discovered the fascinating world of gemstones where every piece has an origin and a story, just like we do.

Experimentation, innovation and surpassing things are words that define the process of research and creation of Espèces – in the sense of identity – because Sébastien Lacomblez and Marie Artamonoff assert a certain level of independence faced with the commercial logic of the masses.

Espèces are designers nourished by their creations, which have been appropriated from their personalities and their personal training: a course in plastic arts with a specialisation in digital art in Mons for Sébastien and jewellery in Namur for Marie. This is an intersting complementary that can be seen in their jewels and their current ready-to-wear experimentations. What is technically acquired in one area is transposed into the other and influences the choice of a certain aesthetic.

Sébastien’s interest for zoology was the perfect excuse to launch the line, which happened in a rather organic way. Using silver, gold and bronze – as well as a diversity of animal parts and bones – the idea for the collection first came in September 2011, when Marie purchased an animal skull for Sébastien’s birthday, making a single cast for herself.

An interested in the science of living things was the leitmotif of the creative process. Bones force us to go beyond ourselves as they have become objects of strangeness that defy notions of time and mortality. The ergonomic from of the objects transcends the status of ‘necklace’.

In a satured market, Espèces has made the choice of marketing themselves out as their unusual items lead to a form of exclusivity. The so-called ‘little structure’ made the choice of developping initially at the international level, increasing the number of its points of sale to gain necessary legitimacy to display their collections in the renowned boutique ’Stijl’ on the rue Antoine Dansaert in Brussels.

In 2015, Espèces pursued its work related to bones, proposing new models and materials and enriched its vocabulary by incorporating patterns into its productions with the launch of a new jewellery line and an experimental ready-to-wear collection. These novelties are inspired by patterns that are present in nature and in particular the way in which they are generated. The Conus textile – also called the golden fleece – is a poisonous shell whose patterns are similar to cellular automatons – mathematical objects, evolving in states according to simple rules, by imitating the self – reproducting capacities of living beings in a certain way.

The duo developed an IT programme that generates drawings and puts in place a unique item system within a series in partnership with a Belgian industrial knitting firm. These drawings are used to produce the knitwear, a technique making it possible to reproduce the design precisely: each pixel is equivalent to a point of the mesh. Each pullover, each scarf and each pair of leggings is unisex and unique. The client chooses from an array of patterns but each item of clothing will have its own variation of the drawing. Headscarves made of silk are also produced from the prints. A line of jewels made of silver and gold taking up their patterns by subtraction and by extrusion also emerged from this idea.