Brendon Monson: Artist Statement & Bio

I am intrigued with digital manufacturing and how digital tools can be merged into a studio practice through a craftsman’s sensibility. Marrying traditional jewellery techniques to the processes of 3D printing, and laser cutting, I begin to question my role as a maker, craftsmen, and artist.

By engaging with historical artefacts in the digital realm, I can make them flexible, morphing them into contemporary forms of antiquity. In the resulting work I strip forms from their historical context and manipulate them to hybridize a once situated object into a transitional understanding. One which does not anchor in time, but balances between past, present and future.

This dilemma materializes through areas in which the digital and the analogue intersect with one another. What interests me is the subversion that occurs when one intervenes in a machine made process with the ‘hand’ - the maker's hand. It is in the imperfect, tactile, and subjective qualities of the handmade that these digitized, historic artefacts can be flexed, moulded and manipulated.

Brendon Monson has been engaged in jewellery making for the past two decades. He has exhibited throughout New Zealand and currently lives and in Dunedin. He is presently employed at Dunedin School of Art as technical teacher and night class tutor.

Brendon Monson: CV December, 2019 Download

Becky Bliss: Artist Statement & Bio

Handshake 2024

Both New Zealand and Australian colonialism saw large-scale land confiscation, displaced indigenous peoples, loss of cultural identity and erosion of traditional practices.

Displacement is associated with climate change as well as forced migration due to conflicts etc. In the Pacific the Maldives, Kiribati, Tuvalu, and the Marshall Islands are currently most at threat with around 4mm of sea rise annually and the populations in these countries will be forced to migrate. Tuvali already has a planned exit strategy.

Changing weather, water levels and heat are forcing migration in many towns and communities in New Zealand and around the world.
I am using the Lego block as a symbol for displacement by moving and deleting the studs.

LEGO is a collaborative game. It’s name comes from the Danish phrase leg godt (“play well”). Now more than ever we need to play well together.

Becky Bliss graduated from Whitireia New Zealand in 2010 and is also a graphic designer.

Her current works look at social issues such as global warming, fair pay and equal employment opportunities.

She was a participant in Handshake 1, 3, and 5 and the current HS7, as well as Handshake alumni exhibitions, in the New Zealand/German Wunderrüma exhibition, and an exhibitor in Schmuck 2020 in Munich and Valencia, and Schmuck 2015 in Munich and Prague and the New Zealand Jewellery exhibition at Gallery Marzee, The Netherlands.

She is in collections at Te Papa Tongarewa, The Doswe Art Museum, Auckland War Memorial Museum, and several private collections

Caroline Thomas: Artist Statement & Bio

"My practice is driven by the forces of material, language, humour and experimentation. I accumulate found materials around me until new relationships suggest themselves. My past working life as an image researcher, where I often had to select one image as a means of encapsulating a larger story, has enabled me to distill complicatedideas into a single form or handful of materials. I enjoy transforming existing objects - that have already lived a life - to find them new partners and add layers to their experiences."

Caroline was born in London, UK in the 1960s to Kiwi parents. She studied History of Art at Edinburgh University and worked as an image researcher in London in the publishing industry for several years. She moved to Aotearoa in 2007 and studied contemporary jewellery at Whitireia NZ from 2011-13. Since then, she has exhibited widely at home and internationally and is a current member of The See Here and Occupation: Artist. She has also participated in the HandShake jewellery mentoring programme.

Kelly McDonald: Artist Statement & Bio

Blurrily focussing around the edges of the ‘jewelleryness of jewellery’, this work aims for an aesthetic balance between art and craft, the wall and the body, and the gutter and high value. 

McDonald takes pleasure in the poetry of simple things, excavating meaning from otherwise discarded useful objects and softening the hardest edges of utilitarian design. Working in series, McDonald draws out the potential for new meanings in our daily encounters with objects, coaxing subtle affinities and delicate perceptions of difference from her rhythmic constellations and typologies of form. By working in this way, McDonald hopes to endow objects with a greater sense of their lived-with experience, and in particular, what they then might reveal about the lives and labours of women. 

Kelly McDonald completed a Bachelor of Visual Arts at Sydney College of the Arts (1997). Since 2004 McDonald has been based in Wellington, New Zealand, where she was a tutor in the contemporary jewellery programme at Whitireia New Zealand (2007-2019), a selected participant in several iterations of the Handshake mentoring project (2014 – 2019) and completed her Masters of Visual Art at Massey University (2019).   

McDonald’s work has been included in Schmuck, Munich (2017), and Wunderruma, an international touring exhibition curated by Karl Fritsch and Warwick Freeman. Her recent exhibitions include The Mother Lode with Victoria McIntosh, exhibited as part of Radiant Pavilion, Melbourne, Australia (2019), solo exhibitions TOOL LOOT & The Mother Lode, at The National, Christchurch and Portraits, at Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery, Auckland, both in 2018. 

Jennifer Laracy: Artist Statement & Bio

There was always something creative going on in my home growing up, so have naturally been guided towards life as a maker of things. I generate ideas through sketching, sometimes in a sort of stream of consciousness. over the years have developed a sort of language of symbols and ideas. Jewellery and art making for me are about figuring things out. as a mother of young children  uninterrupted making time has been rare and longed for, however working in these short bursts has helped shape my practice, leading me often to make small groups of works I think of as still life. 

Jennifer Laracy studied visual arts at Whitireia Community Polytechnic majoring in fine metals, graduating in 2001.

For Laracy, Jewellery can take on personal value that far exceeds that of which it is made, making it a medium utterly appealing.

Laracy is a participant member of 'Handshake 4', a jewellery development mentoring project. She was also lucky to be mentored by Judy Darragh throughout 2017-2018, which has had a significant impact on her practice.

​In 2018, Laracy was the recipient of a creative New Zealand research and development grant which took her to Amsterdam, Paris and Munich, helping to further her own practice and inform her role as an educator.

In 2018, she co-founded 'The Jewel and The Jeweller', a contemporary jewellery workshop and studio, along with artist, Sam Kelly.    

Jennifer Laracy: CV January, 2020 Download

Kristin D'Agostino: Artist Statement & Bio

The Take Away Series evolved out of a situation of mutual joy and delight, conflict and antagonism. Migration and dislocated family meant life-style changes between generations.  The arrival of a baby (or two) was heralded by ‘take-away containers’ rather than freezers full of home cooked food from relatives.  The shift may not be ideal, but it has fuelled new thinking. My source of inspiration is practical and domestic, the butter chicken take-away container deconstructed and celebrated.

Kristin began her jewellery career after immigrating to Auckland New Zealand from the US.  She has had the honour of showing at SCHMUCK 2013, Handwerksmesse, Munich, Germany, the Beijing International Jewellery Art Biennale, as well as a number group shows in New Zealand, Australia, Portugal, and the US.

She enjoys exploring the boundaries of jewellery by making, curating, writing and instigating local projects.  She is an Editor for Overview magazine, a founding member of the Jewellers Guild of Greater Sandringham, the current Art Jewellery Forum Ambassador to NZ and serving on the board of directors for Objectspace Gallery.

Nadine Smith: Artist Statement & Bio

My pieces often consider the fragility of life and life supported. I believe we are all learning to live and survive with the tensions brought by our ever-changing environment and the influence of technology and overpopulation. Sometimes there's equilibrium and sometimes it tips. Human impact is the biggest tipper and we are continually trying to counteract our negative impact and sustain life in all forms. Technology gives rise to change that we aren't always equipped to handle, like prolonged human life and its impact on our society and systems; the boundary between what is natural and what isn't is getting hazier. Humour and whimsy is often a layer covering something darker underneath - my current work plays with ideas of a mechanised, somewhat dark-looking world, but there is light and we make our choices as to which way to turn.

I frequently use recycled materials. I'm creating an ongoing body of work utilising the paraphernalia I have gathered, under the broad title of “Altered States”. The objects and materials come loaded with their own narrative and I'm superimposing a playful new layer that is open to alternative interpretations. Not always making sense even to myself, the resultant pieces take on the stories of association and diverge from their former reality. Each viewer, with their own history, perceives a piece from their own personal perspective.

Nadine Smith is a Wellington based artist who grew up on the Kapiti Coast of New Zealand. She currently works part time both as Artist and Nurse.    Nadine took a break from nursing to follow her creative passion in 2005 and graduated with a Bachelor of Applied Art from Whitireia in 2009.  

Working across different media to portray her ideas, she has been exhibiting nationally and internationally since 2005.  Nadine's work has been collected by The James Wallace Arts Trust and her creative output has appeared on TV3’s Nightline and the TV show The Gravy - a past series on creative culture within New Zealand.  Featured in Art Jewellery Forum following an interview with Susan Cummins, Nadine is currently participating in Handshake4's mentorship programme under the mentorship of New Zealand sculptor Regan Gentry.

Nadine Smith: CV January, 2020 Download

Nik Hanton: Artist Statement & Bio

What was deemed to be valuable is changing as individuals around the planet move to more ecologically friendly alternatives to traditional riches. No longer is jewellery just a diamond set in gold. As our personal values change people are investing in resources that were not previously seen of worth. With this, the concept of what qualifies as 'precious' is being altered."

Using the age old materials and techniques of leather, wood, binding, and hand painting Nik revisits the methods, reshapes them, and tries to bring them into a modern context. Most recently she has been working with 3D printing using plant-based filaments which she feels fits well with this ethos of bringing jewellery techniques into the now.

After studying Sociology and Psychology Nik worked for a number of years in a variety of Media industries before following her passion for jewellery. Her background in the social sciences is evident in her work which explores the themes associated with these disciplines.

In 2015 she completed a Bachelor of Applied Arts majoring in Contemporary Jewellery from Whitireia NZ, received the Fingers Gallery Graduate Award and won the ECC / Dowse student Craft/Design Award for Jewellery from The Village Goldsmith. Her graduate work was part of the Galerie Marzee International Graduate show. 

Exhibitions:

UPCOMING
2020 Atta Gallery -10 year anniversary show, Bangkok, August

PAST
2020 Athens Jewellery Week, Greece, 26 - 31 May
2020 Melting Point, Alliages, Valencia, Spain, April 30 - May 3
2020 Broken Beauty, Alliages, Munich, Germany, (Schmuck Week)
2019 Jewellery and Anatomy, Tincal Lab, Porta, Portugal, Oct
2019 Broken Beauty, Alliages, Illes, France, Dec
2019 Jewellery and Anatomy, Tincal Lab, Porta, Portugal, Oct/Dec
2019 HS in dialogue with CODA collection, CODA Museum, Apeldoorn, The Netherlands, Sep-Dec
2019 Multiples, CODA Museum, Apeldoorn, The Netherlands Sep-Dec
2019 A Jewellers Game, Studio One, Auckland, Dec
2019 SPACE Collaboration, Te Uru Contemporary Gallery, Auckland
2019 no thing (Solo), The SeeHere, Wellington, February/March
2018 Chaos, Alliages, Madrid, Spain, Nov - Dec
2018 Latent, Online exhibition (Solo) as part of Handshake 4, Dec
2018 Chaos, Melting Point, Alliages, Valencia, Spain, May
2018 SUPERPOSITION, Stanley Street Gallery, Melbourne, April
2018 Process, Handshake 4, Toi Poneke, Wellington, March
2018 Impossible Architecture (Solo), The SeeHere, Wellington, March
2018 Chaos, Alliages, Schmuck, Munich, March
2018 Process, Handshake 4, Toi Poneke, Wellington, March
2018 CHAINreaction, Atta Gallery, Bangkok, Jan- Feb
2018 Chaos, Alliages, Lille, France, Dec
2017 Leanings, Handshake 4, Pah Homestead, Auckland Oct - Dec
2017 Música, Tincal Gallery, Portugal, Oct
2017 Alumni Show, Fingers Gallery, Auckland, Oct
2017 Climate Of Thought (Solo), Radiant Pavilion, Melbourne, Aug - Sept
2017 Graduate Metal XV Show, First Site Gallery, Melbourne, Aug - Sept
2017 So Fresh + So Clean: 4th Annual Ethical Metalsmiths International Award Show, Sept
2017 Nexus (Solo), Quoil Gallery, Wellington, Feb
2017 Wearable Expressions 7th International Exhibition, Palos Verde Art Center, California, Jan - April
2016 'Continuum'(Solo), The See Here, Wellington
2016 The 3rd International Biennial of Contemporary Metal Art, METALLOphone:Bonds, (AV17) Gallery, Lithuania
2016 Marzee International Graduate Show, Netherlands | link
2016 Fingers Graduate Award Exhibition, Auckland | link 2016 Playthings, Arts Council Nelson, Nelson
2016 Molly Morpeth 3D Award Show, Whakatāne Museum, Whakatāne | link
2016 Locked Rooms (Solo) Toi Pōneke, Wellington Arts Center | install | opening | toi poneke interview
2016 The Way of Matter, ObjectSpace, Auckland
2016 Four(tune), Quoil Gallery, Wellington
2016 Whio, Quoil Gallery, Wellington
2015 Toast Exhibition, Pataka Art Museum, Porirua
2015 Vivien Atkinson's Salon Rouge, Anna Miles Gallery, Auckland
2015 R.A.W. Gallery One on Eight, Auckland
2015 Tales Untold (Solo), Visual Culture, Wellington | install | opening
2015 Tactile, In Good Company, Wellington
2015 Time Ripened, reSPACE, Wellington
2015 Corrugated Colour, Visual Culture, Wellington
2015 Guild Gallery, Dunedin
2014 12+ Artists 12+ Days Exhibition, reSPACE, Wellington
2014 Hoot Exhibition, reSPACE, Wellington
2014 Cahoot Exhibition, Toi Pōneke, Wellington Arts Center
2014 Friends of Pataka, Arts Award Exhibition, Pataka Art Museum, Porirua
2013 By my Hand, New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts, Wellington
2013 Contemporary Wellington: A jewellery sampler, Occupation Artist Gallery, Wellington

Raewyn Walsh: Artist Statement & Bio

Victory over Death

I was thinking about what happens in the end; it’s nebulous, yet the dynamics of getting a hold of meaning are part of the human experience. Like breathing.

The ten brooches in this exhibition are made using beeswax from hives in the back garden; a place, I can testify, where faith is restored by the continuous die back and resurrection that comes with the seasons. When mixed with a tree rosin the wax cures to a durable finish.

This wax medium was used, primarily by Greek artisans, to paint Egyptian funerary portraits that were attached to mummy wrappings. Their image, and other details, immortalised in wax and then unsealed and deciphered centuries later.

Victory over Death heads to Australia on October 2024.

Raewyn is a jeweller who lives and works in Tamaki Makaurau, Aotearoa (Auckland, New Zealand)

Sarah Read: Artist Statement & Bio

Necklace for the Post-truth Era

In these days of fake news and truthiness, all is not as it seems.

IRL: Necklace. Or, a conspiracy of brooches.

And then social media runs with it, and sure enough, #youcantbelieveyoureyes.

'The potential of global sensemaking has yet to be realised.' (Anthony Judge, Futurist)

I am a Wellington-based artist who works mostly in the field of contemporary jewellery.

I hold a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Hons) from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne and a Bachelor of Applied Arts in contemporary jewellery from Whitireia New Zealand.

My work has a conceptual base and often features social practice, collaboration or third-party participation.

Vivien Atkinson: Artist Statement & Bio

Vivien Atkinson

Continuing her interest in the everyday routines of past domestic life, in this work Atkinson looks at the practice of darning. Clothing and textiles were not always the throw- away commodity they have become today, prolonging the use of these items was essential. Aware also of the damage done by brooch pins, she mends the holes using vintage gold threads to create a new ‘brooch’ that subverts the idea of jewellery’s mobility.

Vivien Atkinson, was born in Australia but is now based in Wellington, New Zealand. She has degrees in Fine Art (Massey University, RMIT) and Applied Art (Whitereia). Her practice is informed by both discourses and an interest in research. Projects deal with memory, identity, and social history and are resolved through a variety of media, including installation, video, sound work, jewellery and performance.