Jacqueline Ryan's jewellery is a feat of slow design
'On the Surface' Exhibition Brings Jacqueline Ryan back to the Scottish Gallery after Twenty Years
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Ten years on Italian time has done Jacqueline Ryan a wealth of good. The ambling pace of the sleepy Umbrian region of Italy is evident in the painstaking details of her work.
Today, 'On the Surface', opens- an exhibition that see's Jacquine Ryan return to the Scottish Gallery after 20 years, since the seminal exhibition Art Jewellery by Jacqueline Ryan and Giovanni Corvaja
A great source of inspiration for the maker is her own childhood, she recalls fondly trips to museums with her parents, where she would marvel at ancient objects and intricate technical equipment. Born of sketches from memory, and topped up with present stimuli of nature and living organisms, Ryan's work begins first as a concept of an object in it's own right, rather than a concept of a specific piece of jewellery. Instead, the object gets commited to the specific item of jewellery that it best lends itself to.
The next step of her design process involves creating miniature sculptures of the pieces using ITalian artisianal papers, bridging the gap between two dimensional drawings and the final three dimensional pieces.
This process of 'metamorphoses' illustrates the care and consideration that goes into each piece. The drawings and prototypes are loving labelled 'invisible histories', as they often go unseen by the public that view her work at exhibitions.
Originally a student of Goldsmithing, Silversmithing, Metalwork and Jewellery' at the Royal College of Arts, Ryan graduated as a Master of the Arts in 1991. Speaking on technique, she says
"I have experimented and found a way of using enamel on my own terms and this has become my signature way of using vitreous enamel."
Jacqueline Ryan's exhibition 'On The Surface' will be on at The Scottish Gallery between 24th July - 24th August 2019, find out more here.
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