Caution! Fragile! Handle with Care!
Nicola Scholz’s jewelry objects

The first impression of Nicola Scholz’s jewelry pieces is one of fragility. They are delicate and at the same time menacing. There is a necklace, woven from the silk of a spider, another one is made of gunpowder. Scholz utilizes ingredients that evoke phobias, materials that don’t invite touch or even a remote association with jewelry. Gunpowder is combustible and spiders belong to the stuff of most people’s nightmares. But despite this or maybe because of it, her objects are irresistibly moving. Nicola Scholz handles the most ephemeral materials with a gentle touch bordering on tenderness – be it pubic hair, horse manure, spider’s legs or lumps of salt. She turns her artistic skills towards generally unnoticed and perishable organic substances and frames them with precious materials to present them in an entirely new light – without provoking disgust or embarrassment. Lumps of horse manure are enclosed in gold, a mummified tarantula is elegantly fastened to a chain of gold rings. It’s a marriage of elements that are fleeting and permanent, indifferent and treasured, living and dead and those contrasts stir up waves of fear and lust at the same time.
Nicola Scholz’s jewelry simultaneously attracts and repels, which turns the individual pieces into fascinating objects surrounded by an elegant web of assumed approachability.
They gently confront common fears and push the limits of what is considered socially acceptable, but at the same time already cross all those lines with a surprisingly effortless and casual ease. They are obscene but touching and prove the theory that the objectionable and the precious are not mutually exclusive, which is what makes them as intriguing as they are. 

Petra Löffler_März 2011

Nicola Scholz, 1966, Kredenbach, Germany.


Education:
2010 Masterstudent, Diplom
2003 - 2009 Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Munich. Klasse für Gerät und Schmuck, Prof. Otto Künzli
1995 - 2001 Working in a goldsmith workshop, Munich 

Collections:
Marzee Collection, Nijmegen, Netherland

Exhibitions (group):
2011 Klaus & Susanne, Jahresaustellung AdBK, Munich | Tête à Tête, 84 GHz, Munich | Danner-Preis 2011, Villa Stuck, Munich
2009 Nothing in Common, Kunstarkaden Munich
2008 Framing – the art of jewelry, Museum of Contemporary Craft, Portland, Oregon, USA | DES WAHNSINNS FETTE BEUTE, Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich | Schmuck 2008, Sonderschau der 60. Internationalen Handwerks-messe Munich | So jung kommen wir nicht mehr zusammen, Jahresaustellung AdBK, Munich | Emu - twist again: news from the Inback, Gallery Funaki, Melbourne, Australia
2007 Jewellery artist from Munich, Tokyo, Japan | Tatort 5: Bloody Mary, Galerie Marzee, Nijmegen, NL | Ich weiss wo du wohnst, Jahresaustellung AdBK, Munich | Itami International Craft Exhibition Jewellery, Museum of Arts & Crafts, Itami, Japan | Framing – the art of jewelry, Sofa, Chicago, Illinois, USA
2006 Schmuck 2006, Sonderschau der 58. Internationalen Handwerks-messe Munich | Tatort 4: Mark Your Territory, Galerie Marzee, Nijmegen, NL | Lass’ den Sonnenschein herein, Jahresausstellung AdBK Munich
2005 Tatort 3: Tatwort, Galerie Marzee, Nijmegen, NL
2004 Tatort 2: VIP, Galerie Marzee, Nijmegen, Niederlande (NL) | Ausstellungsreihe Akademie der Bildenden Künste (AdBK), Munich, Klasse für Gerät und Schmuck, Prof. Otto Künzli | Design Competion Gold, Stedeliijk Museum CS, Amstedam, NL

2009 Nothing in Common, Kunstarkaden Munich
2008 DES WAHNSINNS FETTE BEUTE, Pinakothek der Moderne Munich | Schmuck 2008, Sonderschau der 60. Internationalen Handwerks-messe
2007 Tatort Bloody Mary, Galerie Marzee, Magazin Nr. 57 | Itami International Craft Exhibition Jewellery, Museum of Arts & Crafts
2006 Schmuck 2006, Sonderschau der 58. Internationalen Handwerks-messe | Tatort 4: Mark Your Territory, Galerie Marzee, Magazin Nr. 50 
2005 Tatort – Tatwort, Galerie Marzee Magazin Nr. 44 | Tatwort, Sonderheft mit Audio CD, Galerie Marzee 
2004 Tatort VIP, Galerie Marzee Magazin Nr. 38