The Shape of Eros

Lore Langendries’ work balances between the unique and the serial with a particular focus on the tactile and physical of artefacts, the behavior of material in combination with digital technology and her own intuitive role as a maker. Central to her work is the use of geometrical forms by showing the essence and beauty of animal hides in their most elementary forms writes Ilaria Ruggiero.

Her work focuses on different type of leathers, treated by obtaining pieces always very balanced and minimal, where the living element, the material, becomes strictly connected with the body and its sensuality.

I asked her few questions, to deepen a little her perspective on jewelry production:

Where does your passion for jewelry come from?

LL: The world becoming more and more dominated by technology and the digital, virtual image, ensures an increasingly separation from the emotional and physical of artefacts. Due to the internet we are all visually and virtually connected, but not physically. Touch or tactile perception is overshadowed by the visual culture in which we live, but still, those visual imagery makes touch and feel the hungriest senses of postmodernity. Jewelry is probably an answer to this emotional necessity.

Tell us something about your esthetic and technique:

LL: The material is used as an active agent in the design and making process, handling the material as subject and matter. 

Fragments focus on the particular skin, on the natural hair direction and specific details, similar to a photographic image in which a particular subject is defined, creating a new reality. It is a focus on hidden details, it doesn’t reveal what you can see vague already, it rather reveals new structures of matter.

The hairy pieces, worn on the body, create different feelings. On the one hand, it is unattractive wearing a hairy object, on the other hand It is attractive and stroking becomes an automatic reaction.

Touch is enhanced and complemented by vision, the experience of tactility is not merely about the act of touching but also the intimate feeling one can get. 

How your research is expanding and how do you feel about it?

LL: With Hide, the Fragment I’m presenting a new phase in my work. Hide, the Fragment reveals or conceals, depending on how close it is to your skin. Does the fragment still evoke associations with the animal from which it originates, or does the pattern or shape elicits new references?

This new body of work has now been selected for the Mari Funaki award 2018 of Gallery Mari Funaki In Melbourne Australia. 

About the Contributing Writer

Ilaria Ruggiero is a cultural manager and curator working in the field of contemporary art. She is the founder of Adornment - Curating Contemporary Art Jewelry, a curatorial integrated project dedicated to contemporary art jewelry. It aims to develop the knowledge and consciousness of contemporary jewelry as artistic discipline and as ground search for technique, aesthetics, and philosophy.
www.adornment-jewelry.com