Funaki Gallery

Naarm (Melbourne)

20 March - 20 April 2024

galleryfunaki.com.au

Exhibition Review 'On the Verge of Movement' by Kelly Gellatly https://artjewelryforum.org/reviews/zoe-veness-on-the-verge-of-movement_exhib_australia_8-26-2024/

Still Point is a selection of jewellery that reflects my interest in time-intensive making methods resulting in intricately detailed forms. Central to the work for this exhibition is a folding technique with thin strips of paper that are interwoven and tightly compressed onto steel cable for looping into neckpieces or combining with silver to create brooch designs. This making process is experimental and reflective with looping and weaving systems and colour combinations incrementally reworked to explore new ideas. The notion of a still point alludes to the sense of coherence I seek in my paper jewellery through harmonious synergies between the rhythmical patterns of the intricate folds, the contrasting materials of paper and silver, and the perpetual movement of the looped forms.

images 1 & 2: Wreath 2024. Archival paper, ink, nylon coated stainless steel cable, sterling silver. 440 mm diameter x 50 mm height.

images 3 & 4: Wreath II 2023. Archival paper, nylon coated stainless steel cable, sterling silver. 320 mm diameter x 40 mm height.

images 5 & 6: Double Loop 2020. Archival paper, nylon coated stainless steel cable, sterling silver. 480 mm length x 280 mm width x 40 mm height.

images 7 & 8: Wreath 2020. Archival paper, nylon coated stainless steel cable, sterling silver. 320 mm diameter x 40mm height.

images 9 & 10: Double Loop 2013. Archival paper, ink, nylon coated stainless steel cable, sterling silver. 660 mm length x 190 mm width x 60 mm.

image 11: Square brooches (grey, red, yellow) 2024. Archival paper, nylon coated stainless steel cable, sterling silver, fine silver, stainless steel wire. 53 mm x 69 mm x 10 mm.

image 12: Yellow Square Brooch 2024. Archival paper, nylon coated stainless steel cable, sterling silver, fine silver, stainless steel wire. 53 mm x 69 mm x 10 mm.

Award Winner, Contemporary Wearables ‘23 Biennial Jewellery Award Exhibition

Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery, Queensland, Australia

26 August - 19 November 2023

Wreath 2023

Neckpiece. Archival paper, stainless steel cable, sterling silver. 42 x 42 x 4 cm

This neckpiece explores my interest in aesthetics of time and the value of craft skills through simple yet intricate methods of making - in this case, the concertina-folding of thin paper strips.

The neckpiece embodies a sense of movement through the looped configuration of the form, enhanced by the luminous and rhythmical effects of randomly interspersed colour.

The transformation of a humble material, paper, celebrates the beauty of pattern and ornamentation, and a harmonious tension between labour-intensive processes and the simplicity of the circular form.

Wayfaring through jewellery practice

Presented at All Hands on Deck, a cross-disciplinary symposium

University of Technology, Gadigal/Sydney

19-21 July 2023

Select here for the paper including slides from the presentation

Select here for the All Hands on Deck presentation recordings. The recording of my presentation ‘Wayfaring through jewellery practice’ is included in the session: Designing and Making in Times of Crisis: 18:06-31:54

Abstract

This paper examines narratives of time and place in contemporary jewellery practice through the concept of wayfaring by drawing on Tim Ingold’s ideas about making, movement and materiality (2011, 2013, 2015). I am interested in the notion of wayfaring for signalling a slower tempo of material-making and a processual journey that is reflective, intuitive, and open-ended. Wayfaring provides a poetic means to conceptually frame the measured and incremental pace of my jewellery practice and a search for connections to place. Ingold’s ideas about walking as enabling closer observation and engagement with the material world are applied to the context of the jewellery studio and to the processes involved in metalwork.

My analysis refers to jewellery and vessel objects presented in two solo exhibitions, New Terrain in an Old World (2017) at Craft ACT: Craft + Design Centre and The Stream of Time (2022) at Woollahra Gallery. In making the objects for these exhibitions I reflect on synergies between craft skill, materiality, movement, time, and place. Aside from referring to jewellery examples, that move with the body when worn, I also focus on small cylindrical vessels that are essentially static forms made from thin sheets of metal, encircling and enclosing space. The metal surfaces of these craft objects are perceived as spatial planes analogous to landscapes. My work investigates how jewellery and vessel forms can elicit sensorial encounters representative of immersive experiences in the landscape. Facilitated by methods of repetition and iteration, time is rendered in the metal surfaces through artisanal techniques to convey multi-perspectival views of the land and to highlight the temporality of jewellery practice.

Surfaces of Time: Patination and Colouring in Vessel Making

Presented at the Histories of Metallurgy and Metal Material Culture Symposium

Australian National University, Centre for Art History and Art Theory

Ngunnawal-Ngambri/Canberra, Australia

Friday 18 November 2022

Select here for the paper including slides from the presentation

Abstract

This paper explores the metallurgical phenomena of patination and colouring to reflect on notions of time and materiality in vessel making. In metallurgy, patina describes a thin coating that forms on the surface of objects through natural or artificial oxidation processes, often referred to as tarnish or verdigris in the case of green or green-blue colours on copper, brass or bronze, and is an observable indicator of change. A significant feature in the decorative arts, especially in vessel objects from antiquity, patina, as a symptom of change, signifies a sense of becoming in the life of objects.

I contextualise this study of patina as a signifier of becoming by first discussing the aesthetic value of patina through natural oxidation processes in historical examples of vessel objects. I then refer to practice-based methodologies in my studio work involving empirical research of metallurgy and metal colouring to emphasise tensions between predetermined and unpredictable colouring outcomes with natural and artificial oxidising processes. Central to this discussion of my studio work is a recent series of vessels titled Wayfaring (2019-2022) made from copper, brass and sterling silver in which heating and chemical-based methods result in richly textured surfaces of nuanced colour. I conclude the paper by discussing contemporary examples of vessel making by pre-eminent artists in Europe and Japan who employ patination and colouring in their metalwork through casting and finishing methods. In these contemporary examples of metal colouring, the accelerated process of casting creates surfaces that make enduring connections to geological time.

Finalist, National Contemporary Jewellery Award 2022

Griffith Regional Art Gallery, NSW, Australia

28 October - 18 December 2022

The Stream of Time 2022, three pendants

Copper, brass, sterling silver, 9ct gold, silver solders, cord, 110 x 80 x 1 mm

Photo of three pendants by Document Photography

The Stream of Time explores illusions of depth and movement in the surfaces of thin sheets of metal. Reminiscent of topographical views of the landscape, each pendant is constructed from excess metal accrued over many years of jewellery making including numerous test pieces and experiments in wire, cut into smaller lengths and twisted together or hammered flat. In this process of repurposing, that equally valorises humble and noble metals, the memory of time is fused in a flood of solder.

Moving back and forth between soldering and rolling methods, sheets of conglomerate metals are gradually formed. A final patination process miraculously transforms the pinkish copper into dark purples, white silver into dark grey, yellow brass into gold. During this culminating, transformative moment the solder reveals its painterly effects, seeping in-between and blurring the linear patterns like the ebb and flow of the sea washing over sand.

Finalist, Lake Art Prize 2022

Museum of Art and Culture yapang

Lake Macquarie, NSW, Australia

24 September - 11 December 2022

https://mac.lakemac.com.au/Events/Lake-Art-Prize-2022

Wayfaring 2020-2022, a series of nine lidded vessels

Brass, copper, sterling silver, 9ct gold, silver and gold solders

Installation photos of the Lake Art Prize 2022 courtesy Museum of Art and Culture yapang

Created in my home studio on Yuin Country at Callala Beach in NSW, where scribbly gum trees meet the sea, these small cylindrical vessels evoke a sense of movement through a metallurgical world of material-making. With each vessel I seek to capture the material radiance of metal, gradually building surfaces of textural intricacy and richly coloured hues reminiscent of sensory perceptions of the landscape that surrounds my studio - flickering light through the gum trees, pathways encrusted with stones and shells, and the shifting moods of the sea. Designed to hold precious things, mementos carried through life, the iterative and incremental making of these vessel forms are analogous to wayfaring through time and place. Constructing each vessel is like travelling slowly along paths of material flow, involving transformative processes in the studio that draw upon the elemental forces of fire and water. Geological time expands and contracts as the metal is repeatedly heated and formed through hammering and soldering methods. New discoveries unfold along retraced paths, with every step of the making process echoing the perpetual flux of this beautiful place.

Solo Exhibition

Woollahra Gallery, Gadigal (Sydney)

16 March - 3 April 2022

Viewing the surface of metal as a landscape, I use patterns and repetition to represent movements through time and place and draw inspiration from memories of summer visits to Redleaf Pool from where I grew up in Paddington. I retrace the route along the winding streets and hilly terrain to the harbourside pool, recording the layers of material time in the landscape and reconnecting with visual elements and landmarks along the way. Evocations of this experience are pieced together using bits of copper, brass, silver and gold resulting in a series of pendants and vessel objects.

These memories of place converge with geological and cultural streams of time as I solder and transform the metal into form. A traditional cushion shape associated with gemstones frames the pendants that are reminiscent of landscape views. Each vessel responds to specific moments in the journey and are small enough to hold in one hand with a lid that encloses the interior space, offering the promise of protection like the wrap-around pontoon that encircles the tidal pool at Redleaf. Held or worn on the body, these objects will gradually imbue new meaning further enriching their materiality as they travel through time and place.

Photos of individual works by Stuart Humphreys

Photos of exhibition installation by Document Photography

Metal pendants: Copper, brass, sterling silver, gold, silver solder, cord

Enamel pendants: Copper, vitreous enamel, cord

Metal vessels: Copper, brass, sterling silver, gold, silver solder

Enamel vessels: Copper, brass, sterling silver, silver solder, vitreous enamel

Made/Worn: Australian Contemporary Jewellery 2020-2023

Return Loop Series 2020

Double Loop neckpiece 2013/2020, Archival paper, stainless steel cable, 480 x 280 x 40mm

Wreath neckpiece 2017/2020, Archival paper, stainless steel cable, 330 x 280 x 40mm

Six brooches 2005/2020, Ribbon, lacy, diamond, eye, arabesque, rhomboid, Archival paper, stainless steel wire, sterling silver

Installation photos from Made/Worn at Hazelhurst Arts Centre, Gymea, Sydney 26 November 2022 - 29 January 2023

Photos by Zoë Veness

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This series of paper jewellery is part of the touring exhibition, Made/Worn: Australian Contemporary Jewellery comprising works by 22 artists and organised by the Australian Design Centre. Touring nationally from 2022 to 2023.

The work reflects on nearly twenty years of developing this folding process by referring to past designs as starting points for new pieces.

White paper is selected to convey a fresh starting point like a blank page in my process journal with faint imprints of words, drawings and mathematical sequences from previous pages analogous to echoes of past designs in the jewellery pieces.

Studio XL>XS, Naarm (Melbourne)

Radiant Pavilion: Melbourne Contemporary Jewellery & Object Biennial

13-15 September 2019

Craft + Design Canberra, Ngunnawal (Canberra)

26 March - 9 May 2020

In wayfaring [...] one follows a path that one has previously travelled in the company of others, or in their footsteps, reconstructing the itinerary as one goes along. - Tim Ingold (2016) Lines, A Brief History, London: Routledge, p.77.

Wayfaring explores sensory manifestations of place through notions of time and travelling as a means to further understand and connect with the material world.

Key to the project is an emphasis on the ‘way’ or the process of making objects which draws attention to iterative and intuitive making practices and idiosyncratic material engagements.

Working with three other artists, Sarah Stubbs, Bella Dower and Sara Lindsay, who I first met at the University of Tasmania in Nipaluna/Hobart, the project has involved two exhibitions in September 2019 and March 2020.

The first exhibition at Studio XL>XS showed iterative studies in jewellery and vessel forms with metal and porcelain. Table displays allowed viewers to engage directly with the works.

For the second show at Craft + Design Canberra, Bella Dower and Sara Lindsay, the emerging artists in the group, chose to create new jewellery pieces while Sarah Stubbs focused on hybrid vessel assemblages in porcelain. https://craftact.org.au/blogs/past-exhibitions-2020/wayfaring

For both exhibitions, I created a series of vessel forms using silversmithing methods that attempt to encapsulate a sense of movement through form and matter. These vessel objects are intended to be held and to contain precious things.

Images of my vessels by Peter Whyte Photography

Image of Wayfaring at Craft + Design Canberra by @_5foot Photography

Stacks Projects, Gadigal (Sydney)

25 July - 11 August 2019

Sylvie Veness & Zoë Veness

This joint exhibition provided a unique opportunity for my sister and I to explore ideas together for the first time. An affinity with intricate detail through repetitive crafting and seriality features strongly in our work as well as ideas relating to the grid.

Sylvie draws from her background in printmaking and textiles to create works on paper that incorporate etching, drawing, painting, perforations and stitch-work. Her series of postcard-sized works for Affinity are made from rice paper she collected in Japan during visits in 2018 and 2019.

We created a series of metal brooches imprinted with fine muslin cloth and embellished by french knots. Enhancing a sense of movement and vitality is the distorted grid of the muslin’s open weave.

Providing a counterpoint to wall mounted works, the use of two trestle tables conveyed the studio setting and site of processual making and experimentation. Along with the series of Affinity brooches made with Sylvie, I presented initial ideas for vessels that I have continued to explore in the Wayfaring project (2019-2020).

Installation photos by Document Photography.

Craft + Design Canberra, Ngunnawal (Canberra)

16 November - 16 December 2017

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.

Exhibition catalogue for New Terrain in an Old World

Rising high above Nipaluna (Hobart), Kunanyi’s magnetism is keenly felt. Only a twenty minute drive from the city centre, the summit of Kunanyi, otherwise known as Mount Wellington, is a popular tourist destination for the magnificent views of Nipaluna and the south-eastern coastline. The view to the west however, across the top of the mountain is unexpectedly sublime. Stretching for miles is a tree-less expanse of dolerite, shrubs and lichen that during the warmer months create carpets of copper, burgundy and green hues. In Winter this expanse is transformed by snow.

New Terrain in an Old World is developed in response to this ancient place where one can encounter a sense of deep time. In this body of work I depart momentarily from the paper folding methods that previously preoccupied my practice, and return to silversmithing and photography to focus on surface detail and an interplay between small and large scales. Small vessels echo landscapes and a long loop of insect wings reference the smallest butterfly, the Ptunarra Brown, a threatened species found only in Tasmania. The magnetism of kunanyi/Mount Wellington is portrayed in the smallest of details through a series of photographs of the summit’s dolerite surfaces that remind us of the fragile complexities of this ancient place.

Photos of kunanyi/Mount Wellington by Zoë Veness

Photos of exhibition work by Peter Whyte Photography

Remanence, Ten Days on the Island Festival

Domain House, nipaluna (Hobart)

17-26 March 2017

Curated by Noel Frankham, Kit Wise, Svenja Kratz, Zoë Veness.

Artists: Max Angus, Paul Boam, Phillip Blacklow, Lucy Bleach, Neil Haddon, Dorita Hannah & Sean Coyle, Bill Hart & Joe Shrimpton, Gay Hawkes, Kit Hiller, Jan Hogan, Rob Long, Zoë Veness, Martin Walch, Kit Wise.

The exhibition at Domain House commemorates the 1967 bushfires and draws together Tasmanian artists working across a range of mediums including video installation, jewellery, electronic media, sculpture and furniture whose work responds to how fire has shaped the landscape and affected the psyche of the people that occupy this land. The title, Remanence, creates links to continuance and remains, but also references and extends the scientific meaning of the term and the concept of residual magnetism to describe the invisible forces that linger long after an initial object (or event) has been detached.

Photos by Peter Whyte Photography.

Posterzine Project, Studio Ingot

Radiant Pavilion Naarm/Melbourne Contemporary Jewellery & Object Biennial

26 August - 2 September 2017

Curated with Sarah Stubbs

Tucked away on the ground floor of the Centre for the Arts building in nipaluna (Hobart) is the TasTAFE Letterpress Studio, an immaculately maintained space filled with finely-tuned machinery most of which are over a hundred years old. With the push or pull of a wheel these machines whirl to life in a hypnotic dance of cause and effect oscillating from plate to print. The fact that these machines are still operational is quite remarkable given their age and the profoundly global shift over decades from analogue to digital modes of communication. Many of these machines in the studio have been saved from extinction painstakingly cleaned and pieced back together over many years.

Through this printing process the page is imbued with an embossed, tactile surface. Tracing these impressions, one is made aware of the preciousness of the printed word, for this traditional method of printing takes time. It is precisely the pace, the slowing down of time, the tactile outcome, as well as the precision of the process that interests us. Viewed through our jewellers’ eye the Letterpress Studio offers an exciting opportunity to explore an alternative means of re/presenting artists and most importantly Tasmanian-based jewellery artists. Concealed in the centre fold of this booklet, the posterzine presents a glimpse into the world of jewellery practice in Tasmania told through the words of four artists - Emma Bugg, Natalie Holtsbaum, Shauna Mayben and Linda van Niekerk. With each conversation unique and nuanced accounts of place and community are revealed.

PhD examination exhibition, ADspace, University of New South Wales, Art & Design, Gadigal (Sydney)

3-7 November 2014

PhD thesis: Towards Autonomous Jewellery: Examining the loop between jewellery and the body through a sculptural dimension

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Also exhibited at Studio 20/17, Gadigal (Sydney)

20 October - 7 November 2015

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Wearing it lightly by Julie Ewington, October 2015

The chain is one of the most ancient of all jewellery forms. One loop meets another loop, then another, and so it goes on. But the variety of these loopings is infinite, as is the form itself.

Zoë Veness is the current mistress of this art. Look at the sinuous sophistication of these beautiful looped paper chains, and the variety of forms: Coil Loop: Green 2013 is a single looped structure, and Double Loop: Red 2012 is a simple doubling of a longer finer structure. Double Loop: Grey 2012-2013, on the other hand, has the original chain folding back and looping over on itself to make a far more complicated and playful form. There is evident delight here, set into the twisting folding energies of these folded forms.

However, the apparently effortless simplicity of these necklaces is structured by a set of intricate and idiosyncratic calculations, as rapidly becomes evident on closer inspection. What you see here are complex, even complicated, structures. The loops are all based on the rigorous application of a number of patterns, one might say formulae in the mathematical sense – and there are indeed codes for their making. Yet this arduous process, this embodied mathematics, is always subordinate to the making of the jewellery; both mathematics and paper sit lightly on the body.

With this work, Veness set out to make jewellery that approached the condition of sculpture; she questioned the multiple distinctions between jewellery and sculpture, and to thought through the ways the body and the plinth work as supports. Finally, though, in exploring the never-ending form of the chain, Zoë Veness invokes the impossibility of resolving her own question one way or another – is jewellery ever fully independent of the body? Are these objects autonomous or supplemental to the body? Perhaps they are always both – like the constant transactions of the chain itself.

Photos by Orlando Luminere

Paper brooch designs

Created between 2005 and 2010, these brooches explore various methods to integrate paper and sterling silver. Each design is unique.

Photos by Zoë Veness

image 1. Square Brooch 2010. Archival paper, sterling silver, paper, stainless steel cable. Collection: National Gallery of Australia. Photo credit: National Gallery of Australia.

image 2. Yellow Square Brooch 2007. Archival paper, sterling silver, stainless steel cable. Collection: Rhianon Vernon-Roberts Collection: Art Gallery of South Australia.

image 3. Sun Brooch 2007. Archival paper, sterling silver, stainless steel cable. Collection: Rhianon Vernon-Roberts Collection: Art Gallery of South Australia.

image 4. Blue Wreath Brooch 2007. Archival paper, sterling silver, stainless steel cable.

image 5. Metamorphosis Brooch 2007. Archival paper, sterling silver, stainless steel cable. 

image 6. Blue Knot Brooch 2008. Archival paper, sterling silver, ink, stainless steel cable. 

image 7. Yellow Brooch with Blue Centre 2010. Archival paper, sterling silver, copper, vitreous enamel, stainless steel cable. 

image 8. Flat Brooch Designs 2005. Archival paper, sterling silver, stainless steel cable. 

JamFactory Contemporary Craft and Design, Tarntanya (Adelaide)

12 September - 11 October 2009

In this exhibition the weaving and knotting methods devised during a residency in Edinburgh in 2006, further explore rhythms and tensions in materials. The fold is a central method that transforms paper strips into wearable forms with the knot necklaces signalling a momentary departure from combinations with metal. Brooches and pendants continue to integrate paper and metal in the one form with, in some cases, the introduction of vitreous enamel to test another dimension.

Photos by Zoë Veness

Australian Design Centre (formerly Object: Australian Centre for Craft and Design), Gadigal (Sydney)

11 November 2006 - 7 January 2007

In April 2006 I visited Scotland to undertake an artist residency with the Jewellery and Silversmithing Department at Edinburgh College of Art. During this time I was fortunate to witness Edinburgh's transition from Winter to Spring with pink blossoms emerging all over the trees in front of the neighbouring church. One morning after a night of rain I awoke to find a carpet of pink petals at the church's entrance. For days streams of pink floated around the street, piling up in gutters and settling in between the cobblestones.

I photographed the pink petals against the grey cobblestones and instantly recognised the image's visual appeal. This inspired me to photograph the cobblestones of Old Town. I noticed different ways they were arranged, variations of grey surfaces, contrasts between dull grey stone and shiny silver and brass markings and in many cases a harmony of opposites with solid rectangular spaces illuminated by hazy outlines of colour - yellow road paint, pink and white petals, grass and weeds. The photographs not only documented my walks around Edinburgh but reinforced my interests in systems of order, repetition, colour and pattern.

The initial idea to use paper and metal in my work was to explore tensions between materials of opposing qualities and to question the notion of preciousness often associated with material value in commercial forms of jewellery. Over time though my motivations changed as my desire to search for new solutions for integrating paper and metal intensified.

Prior to the residency my work consisted of two-dimensional patterns that explored proportion, repetition and colour. During my time in Edinburgh I focused on creating three dimensional forms by looping, knotting and wrapping long strands of tightly concertina folded paper strips. These experiments resulted in a series of 18 test pieces that were the starting point for new work.

Photos by Zoë Veness

Master of Design (Hons) Examination Exhibition

Ivan Dougherty Gallery

University of New South Wales, Art & Design

Gadigal (Sydney)

10-14 February 2004

In some categories of jewellery, particularly those promulgated by the commercial jewellery trade, precious materials such as gold and diamonds equate monetary value with forms of sentiment and love, social status, wealth, prestige and exclusivity. In the commercial industry ‘value’ or ‘preciousness’ is commonly associated with the predominant use of precious materials in conjunction with customary forms and techniques for the production of 'ostentatiously impressive and expensive'[1] jewellery. Many contemporary jewellery practitioners, for whom jewellery possess the power to communicate beyond public declarations of wealth, challenge these ‘values’ by opting to employ humble, inexpensive materials as well as unconventional treatments of traditional materials.

The value of hand skills, extensive experimentation and incremental refinement as part of a process analogous to Alchemy are key areas in the research. In this context the concept of alchemy, borrowed from Game and Goring[2] as well as from Helen W. Drutt[3], describes a magical transformation of materials considered worthless by mainstream society into objects of desire.

The importance of these investigations is to affirm the value of the idea, of hand-work and of extensive and reflective design and making processes within contemporary jewellery practice. In broader terms though, the research aims to contribute towards an expansive and poetic vision for contemporary jewellery.

1. Dormer, Peter and Turner, Ralph (1985) The New Jewelry. London: Thames and Hudson, 7.

2. Game, Amanda and Goring, Elizabeth (1998) Jewellery moves – Ornament for the 21st Century. Edinburgh: NMS (National Museum of Scotland) Publishing.

3. Holzach, Cornelie (2002) Peter Chang, Jewellery, Objects, Sculptures. Stuttgart: Arnoldsche Art Publishers.

Photos by Blue Murder Studios, Sydney

image 1: Cycles 2003. Paper, sterling silver, stainless steel cable. 45 cm long.

image 2: Childhood memories 2003. Brown wrapping paper, 9ct and 10ct yellow gold, stainless steel cable. 40 cm long.

image 3: Progression 2003. Paper, sterling silver, stainless steel cable. 65 cm long.

image 4: Renewal 2003. Plastic, sterling silver, stainless steel cable. 48 cm long.

image 5: Numerical Calculations 2004. Paper, ink, sterling silver, stainless steel cable. 57 cm long.