Gerd Rothmann is one of the living legends of contemporary jewelry design. The artist uses the fingerprints of the people who commission his jewelry. The jewelry then takes on a special dimension, taking on a sense of exclusivity.

Karl Fritsch uses gemstones and arranges them in completely unexpected ways. They will be used as raw material. Karl Fritsch is part of a new generation of jewelers who take a critical look at jewelry, particularly precious jewelry, in order to better expose its flaws. Her jewelry, whose seemingly clumsy appearance actually reveals exemplary craftsmanship, is movingly personal because it bears the indelible mark of the artist who created it.

Claude Pelletier, an avant-garde artist since the 1960s, created this ebony brooch shaped like a drape. It is decorated with gold and has a rutile quartz in the center. In the 1980s, alongside his personal creations, he continued to produce special commissions, including the S collection for Cartier and a line of jewelry for Christofle. While anchoring his work in geometrism, his inspiration took a new path that would leave a lasting mark on his work: drapery, crystal or ebony pleats, and the use of motifs foreign to jewelry.

The Maori valued nephrite as much as Europeans valued gold. It is a symbol of belonging and prestige. Here Lisa Walker uses jade, but in a more contemporary form. The exhibition « Regard sur la Nouvelle Zélande » (“A Look at New Zealand”) brought together several New Zealand artists who use traditional materials or techniques.

Filigree: Smooth, twisted, or textured gold or silver metal wires that are attached to each other or to a background by melting or soldering. This technique is unique in that it uses only pure metal, gold, and silver. Due to their low melting point and elasticity when exposed to heat, just one gram is enough to produce several meters of wire, the aim being to obtain very fine metal wires.

Granulation: a decorative technique that involves attaching fine spherical granules to a piece to be decorated. Gold is heated to a high temperature and transformed into small beads. Origin of the technique The Sumerians were the first to invent the techniques of filigree and granulation in Mesopotamia (in what is now Iraq) between the 4th and 3rd centuries BC. These techniques subsequently spread to the Middle East, Egypt and then Europe, particularly around the Mediterranean. The filigree technique is used in many pieces of jewelry, but also in various other objects (helmets, daggers, statuettes, etc.). The Etruscans, in 750 BCE, also possessed a great deal of expertise in goldsmithing. They crafted tiny gold beads to incorporate into jewelry.

Filigree in contemporary design

Robert Baines, professor emeritus at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, has created numerous pieces of jewelry using the filigree technique. Studying Etruscan techniques, he creates three-dimensional works. Metal wires, in this case silver, a highly malleable material, are bent and assembled in an architectural manner. He also uses galvanization (a technique that protects metal parts from corrosion by covering them with a layer of zinc) to coat the paint wires.

Many artists use recycled materials for ecological purposes. Artist Isabelle Azais is concerned about plastic pollution in the oceans. She recycles plastic bags that she finds on construction sites, for example, to bring to life amazing creations that seem to come from the bottom of the sea. She also recycles emergency blankets collected at the end of marathons.

Finnish artist Jana Syvanoja recycles books and directories. She cuts all the leaves into the same shape, folds them in the same way, and assembles them on a steel wire. The result is an organic shape that is very soft to the touch.

Example of Marianne Anselin’s tin cans and Sophie’s beer caps