Níamh Grimes is an artist jeweller who creates wearable objects which sit between art, adornment and artefact. She combines metals with inherited and found objects which preserve and reimagine forgotten English and Irish folk customs. This might include antique lace embossed onto a metal surface; salt crystals grown onto a brass necklace or fragments of Victorian keys incorporated into a chain. Her work allows these to inspire contemporary, jewellery - facilitated customs and rituals.
- Focus:
- Metal casting; soldering; embossing metal surfaces with found objects; English and Irish heritage; folk histories; English and Irish folk customs.
- Commissions:
- Available for commissions
Within my practice I use only recycled metals and save each off cut to smelt in my next cast. I love the scope within the metalwork specialism for reusing the material over and over again. Not only do I enjoy thinking about how the object's story changes as the metal takes new forms, but it comforts me to know that much of the waste I create isn't being discarded.
Additionally, I buy very little new materials to work with as the found objects within my pieces tell important historical stories.