Nuala Jamison
1948-2016
Nuala Jamison 1948-2016
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Christina Jansen, Managing Director of The Scottish Gallery kindly writes an obituary for Benchpeg on Nuala Jamison, one of the leading lights of the contemporary non precious jewellery movement in the 1970s who sadly left us in August 2016.
In July 2016, Nuala Jamison held what would be her last solo exhibition at The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh called Faceted Light. The Scottish Gallery was one of many galleries to have represented her wonderful work, in our case over three decades. Jamison was determined to make a new body of work for her exhibition and also include highlights from her career.
Born in Lurgan, County Armagh in 1948, Jamison first studied in Belfast before concentrating on Jewellery Design at Central St Martins in London, graduating in 1972.
Nuala Jamison was a pioneer of modern jewellery, specialising in acrylic - her work is synonymous with enhancing the wearer with colour and light.
Jamison was also an art educator and up until recently was teaching jewellery at Morley College in London as well as summer classes in Ireland.
Her sculptural jewellery was inspired by urban city spaces as well as the southern Irish coastline; between London and County Cork, she felt she had the best of both worlds.
During the course of her life in jewellery, Jamison designed accessories for the iconic clothing designer Jean Muir and in the 1980’s she enjoyed a collaborative partnership with Caroline Broadhead and produced a line of acrylic jewellery called C&N.
Jamison carved and shaped her pieces with pumice over several weeks to achieve a weathered appearance.
Image copyright Nuala Jamison
Above all, Jamison loved colour and more recently she had developed ways of dyeing and colouring acrylic to enhance the reflective qualities – sometimes creating a subtle blend of shades and other times mixing together contrasting colours or cutting facets to reveal more light.
Her work is held in numerous public collections worldwide. The quality of Nuala Jamison’s work and the joy that her work has given women over the decades will be difficult to replace.
Nuala Jamison was dedicated to the craft of making beautiful jewellery, she was a consummate professional, direct in her approach and practice and a pleasure to deal with.
by Christina Jansen, Managing Director, The Scottish Gallery
To view the Faceted Light. exhibition click here: www.scottish-gallery.co.uk
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