|
|
|
|
|
|
PLY
2019 Rubicon ARI, Melbourne Ply: to work steadily with a tool to practice regularly to repeatedly supply Plier: a hand tool used to hold objects firmly a person or thing that plies From the Latin plicāre: bend/fold. PLY explores the bending of metal with pliers. An action performed by jewellers and metalsmiths innumerable times in their career, but an act which is often unobserved, shrouded in the mysteries of the solitary workshop. This performative work exaggerates the action and brings the process of making into public view. 
|
|
|
Materials Pliers: steel pipe and bolt from a scrap yard Boilersuit: linen, red painted aluminium buttons made from second hand pots and pans Stamping die: second hand steel Neckpieces: aluminium from second hand pots and pans, recycled sterling silver tube, cord |
Made/Worn: Australian Contemporary Jewellery at Australian Design Centre and touring nationally 2020-2022.
Regent Honeyeater, 2020, recycled red ironbark (Eucalyptus sideroxylon), steel from an old car exhaust, leather Leadbeater's Possum, 2020, recycled mountain ash (Eucalyptus regnans), steel from an old car exhaust, leather South-eastern Red-tailed Black Cockatoo, 2018, river red gum (Eucalyptus camaldulensis), steel from an old car exhaust, leather Bornemisszas Stage Beetle, 2020, blackheart sassafras (Atherosperma moschatum), steel from an old car exhaust, leather Swift Parrot, 2020, recycled messmate stringybark (Eucalyptus obliqua), steel from an old car exhaust, leather Up North
2017 Gray Street Workshop Gallery, Adelaide The Lost Ones, Ballarat Gallerysmith project Space, Melbourne |
|
|
Up north it's cold. This summer doesn't fit with her experiences of summer. The plants grow in a desperate frenzy and are hacked into submission by the local school children. She has to quickly gather the plants for dyeing before they disappear.
She sees how the people influence the landscape. And how the landscape influences the people. Why do you always see sheep in threes? How do you souvenir a mountain? What is a blueberry? This exhibition of work by Claire McArdle explores her experiences of Iceland told through objects and jewellery. |
Icelandic Wool Natural Dye List
|
1&2 Yarrow
3 Yarrow exhaust bath 4 Downy Birch leaves 5A Crowberries 5B Crowberries exhaust bath 6A Crowberry Plant 6B Crowberry Plant exhaust bath 7 Downy Birch Bark 8 Rhubarb Roots 9 Field Horsetail |
10 Purple Flower
11 Rowan Leaves 12 Common Sorrel Roots 13 Dandelion Roots 14 Dandelion Flowers 15 Dulse 16 Dwarf Birch Twigs 17 Downy Birch Twigs 18 Lupin Seed Pods 19 Lupin Leaves |
20 Bog Bilberries
21 Rhubarb Roots exhaust bath 22 Bog Bilberries exhaust bath 23 Lady's Bedstraw roots (no colour) 24 Crowberries 25 Crowberry Plant 26 Soft Pine Tree 27 Sunburst Lichen 28 Dwarf Birch Leaves 29 Common Sorrel Flowers |
|
Sextet
2017 vitreous enamel, copper, sterling silver, wood, brass Das KloHäuschen, Munich, Germany I had never visited Das KloHäuschen in person before our collaboration but I grew to know it over the many months of our association. It was once a urinal but has been an art space for the past 9 years. This collaboration existed through representations on the internet. I scrutinised images for details that would be so obvious in person. With this virtual knowledge I constructed instruments echoing the physical structure of the space. The instruments create sound and can be worn on the body. When the work was presented in Munich it was curious to be in a space which I have examined for so long from such a distance. Six pieces for the six urinals make up the Sextet. For a while the instruments adorned the space of their inspiration and you could hear the song that was made through this collaboration. The song for Das KloHäuschen. |
|
|
|
Quintet
2017 A-galerii, Tallinn, Estonia Quintet is a series of five jewellery pieces which can be both passively worn and actively played as instruments. Their forms illustrate differences between Australia and Estonia as experienced by the maker, the stars, the long twilight, the landscape, collecting wild blueberries on a strand of grass and pickles. The body of the form is made from a crushed Vana Tallinn bottle (Estonian liqueur), the most accessible physical Estonian product in Australia. Together their sounds make up the song which is played at their exhibition in The Vault. The song for Tallinn. |
|
|
In Australia, the beach has played a large role in the shaping of a national identity. There has been a constant companion on to the long summer days. An invisible barrier to a beloved enemy. It creates a physical shield to protect our soft skin from the rays blazing through our ozone poor atmosphere. Keys, wallet, phone, sunscreen.
|
Public Displays of Attention |
This attention grabbing jewellery creates a visual voice which cries out joyously to the many strangers we encounter everyday during city life. Colossal and colourful, these pieces all carry an urge to be connected to others. They create a shared experience for both the wearer and the viewer as they become part of one of the many ‘Public Displays of Attention’.
At the opening people could try on their preferred piece and see if it attracted the right amount of attention for them. As well as having a photo with their favourite as a souvenir postcard. Materials: hand dyed silk, sterling silver, mixed media. Second solo exhibition. |
Public Displays of Attention
2012, Studio 20/17, Sydney
Public Displays of Attention
2011, First Site Gallery, Melbourne
|
|
Tokens of Place
This is a series of jewellery I have crafted from collected fragments of the environments I have encountered. These fragments are usually loose rocks, which I crush and set into jewellery as a reminder of the place they were found. The pieces connect people with places. Each piece is named after the place and time of its rocks collections, for example “Exhibition Street, 2pm”. Each piece holds a memory of a place, to be carried with the wearer on their personal journey. All the pieces are blackened silver with the variation in colour and texture of the rocks presenting a palette of the urban and rural environments of their collection. The pieces could be from a street you walk down every day. These collected works are a history of place for me. A journey traced in jewellery. They are a memento of a moment. A token of a place. (First solo exhibition in 2010) |
|
Silver Cups
2014, kauri, sterling silver, 65x60x50mm (largest)
To adorn; to make more attractive
wooden cups, Silver Cups There is a hierarchy of materials. 
|
|
|
|
This is Jewellery
2012, sterling silver, silk The two dimensional artwork is traditionally hung on the wall. It is experienced with the eyes but not with the body. This piece is a re-presentation of a symbolic form as jewellery. It takes the most recognised form and conventional placement of art but retains the notions and functionality of jewellery. The use of metal connects to jewellery while the use of silk relates to the canvas.
Is jewellery art? What is art? This is jewellery. |
Ribbons
2012, sterling silver, silk
90x23x9 & 80x26x9mm
2012, sterling silver, silk
90x23x9 & 80x26x9mm
|
|
|
|
Works from 2010 |
|
|
|
Works from 2009 |
Wandering Tray
2008, copper, brass, paint, dimensions variable |
|
I would like to acknowledge the people of the Kulin Nation as the Traditional Custodians of the unceded land on which I was born, live and on which my work is made. And to recognise their continuing creativity and connection to making. I pay my respects to their Elders past and present and to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people of this country. And all First Nations people around the world.
