Colour and Gems at Leeds
Brooch, Lesley Strickland
Leed’s Craft Centre and Design Gallery has chosen jewellery for their summer exhibition which runs until 26 September.
Colour and Gems shows work by ten designers whose jewellery is particularly colourful and another five who focus on gems. ‘This show follows on from our previous one, Without Colour, so we wanted to have an explosion of colour to play against those monochromes,’ says the gallery’s Hayley Walker. She also explains that jewellery makes a good choice for a summer exhibition: ‘It’s a good way of talking to the public, they always understand jewellery and it goes well in the summer because of the colour and the feel-good factor’.
It’s a mixed media show and Walker has tried to get a good variety of techniques and approaches as well as mixing up newer names with more established ones. The colour theme also contrasts with the gem theme in terms of material, as many of the more colourful pieces are made from non-precious materials – for example Melanie Tomlinson’s beautifully patterned tin brooches and Sarah Lindsay’s acrylic jewellery – while the pieces incorporating gems are obviously more valuable. It makes for an interesting visual mix and challenges conventional ideas linking value purely to precious materials in jewellery.
www.craftcentreleeds.co.uk
