Wood

Artist list

Agelio Batle, Garry Knox Bennett, Daniel DiCaprio, Thomas Gentille, Katy Hackney, Julia Harrison, Sachiyo Higaki, Tom Hill, Leonor Hipólito, Deukhee Ka, Kenta Katakura, Djurdjica Kesic, Beppe Kessler, Edgar Mosa, Nick Mullins, Jacob Nyberg, Gitte Nygaard, Lina Peterson, Auba Pont, Fliss Quick, Gustav Reyes, Catherine Truman, Julia Turner, Flóra Vági, Manuel Vilhena, Luzia Vogt

WOOD seeks to explore the exciting new jewelry using wood as the primary material. Carved, polished, inlaid, pegged, painted and charred, WOOD features a variety of wood-working techniques to showcase the versatility of a material not normally considered worthy as jewelry. Ideas of sustainability, preciousness and the sensuality of this humble material are the focus of this new exhibition.

The jewelry in the exhibition ranges from the virtuosic geometric work of Thomas Gentille, one of the best known artist jewelers in the world, to detailed hand-carved portraits of people's eyes by young US based artist Julia Harrison. Bay Area artist Garry Knox Bennett, known as the Furniture World's bad-boy is showing two large colorful neckpieces. Fliss Quick from the UK tells the story of a fictional teenage firebug with a series of talismans imagined to be found in a box under a bunk bed. A number of the artists speak of a spiritual aspect of using wood as a part of Nature and as a rejection of precious metals (and the environmental cost of their production).  Several of the artists use only reclaimed wood and have created objects of adornment instead of becoming landfill.  Wood carving is well represented in the exhibition with abstract forms from Manuel Vilhena (Portugal), Lina Peterson, (UK), Flóra Vági (Hungary) and Kenta Katakura, (Japan).  Tom Hill (UK/USA) carves haunting bird skulls in bleached and painted basswood. Yugoslav Djurdjica Kesic working in Australia whittles native oak stickpins showing that the simplest of techniques can create poetic and thoughtful jewelry. San Francisco artist Agelio Batle plays with preciousness even more by using particle board and covering it in gold leaf.

The 26 artists in WOOD are just a few of the many artists working around the world who feel free from traditional ideas of adornment that dictate that jewelry must be made of gold and gems. They have found beauty in the trunk of a tree.