There's lots going on at Contemporary Applied Arts this week. Our New Maker applications are open, we're preparing for Collect 2025, and our next exhibition is around the corner. Take a look at some of the wonderful new work that has come into the gallery, including our first new pieces by Michèle Oberdieck this year (pictured above). Make sure to catch the Mythological exhibition, on in the gallery until the 27th of July.
Work by Jane Adam, Kate Bajic, Sara Dodd and Michèle Oberdieck, is available in our Marylebone Gallery and online at caagallery.org.uk.
Jane Adam balances symmetry and irregularity, using dyed anodised aluminium with precious metals to create delightfully colour-speckled jewellery, each piece with its own unique finish. Adam's jewellery is strong and sensual, both in the nature of the forms themselves and how they feel when worn. Stretching, compressing, puncturing and shaping her material, Adam imparts her intimate discovery into inventive, handcrafted works of adornment. Fabricating bi-metals of sterling silver & high karat gold, and jewellery in anodized aluminium, the artist uncovers playful and refined wonder in sophisticated works of wearable art.
Kate Bajic uses the countryside around her Leicestershire home as inspiration for her beautiful contemporary jewellery, in particular the varied textures and forms found in lichen. Through photography, sample collection and drawing, Kate examines their minute complexity and translates aspects of this into her work. She handcrafts pieces using mainly sterling silver, texturing, patinating, or pairing pieces with unusual semi-precious stones or lustrous baroque pearls. Designs evolve through experimenting with layering, composition and playing with contrasting colours and forms. Kate can also be commissioned to work in gold.
Inspired by natural forms and organic structures, Michèle Oberdieck explores balance and asymmetry through shape, surface and colour. Using sculptural forms as a gesture, or expressive mark, often combining a few pieces together, a narrative is created.
She is drawn to biomorphic shapes found in plant growth and decay, such as the delicate forms tulip petals take on this journey. These beautiful twisted organic shapes reveal the motion of aging stopped in its tracks. It is this transformation that she aims to capture in glass. The expressive twists and turns away from symmetry create a fluidity, showing movement in the piece. Colour has always played an important role in Oberdieck’s work, from her past practice printmaking, and textiles, to glass which allows her a unique way to express the delicacies of colour and its interaction with light.
Sara Dodd sees beauty in the fragility and delicacy of porcelain whilst utilising its strength. These elements characterise her distinctive style. Sara uses slip paints to create her wafer thin pieces of ceramic. Then using repetition she creates pieces constructed of these individual units that build up to form sculptures and wall based installations. Eliciting curiosity her work uses general notions of what ceramics is and its possibilities.
