Pierce Healy: Contemporary Jewellery Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me? The Musical!
February 24-March 26, 2017
Artist’s Reception: Friday, February 24, 6-8 pm
Artist Statement
Adornment and jewellery hail from pre-civilisation, as does humour. Hence the pairing of humour with the most intimate applied art form of jewellery is an obvious match. These days Pierce Healy can be found solving his world’s problems creating subversive objects and jewellery often layered with intricate engravings. He refers to himself as a human Swiss army knife; not in an Edward Scissorshands way but in the way he toils in an array of materials and disciplines in addition to the numerous skills he has acquired throughout his life so far.
Within his practice there is no “master plan” each piece is an experiment a study that informs the next piece. He is fascinated by the capacity of jewellery to develop into our most personal of vessels for our story’s and storytelling in addition he is interested in the idea that jewellery is our second skin and when worn becomes something bigger, something other worldly as it takes on the scratches, dings and stories of the wearers adventures. Healy combines his craze for the everyday, drawing, storytelling, mark making and hand engraving to create truly hand-made raw jewellery.
Healy is particularly interested in and the space between the artist and the non-artist and the role of humour in jewellery and how the harnessing of humour in his work can be use as stealth communication device in particular to invite everybody into the conversation.
rings, hand engraved oxidized sterling silver, 2017
do you realize how beautiful you are?, pendant, hand engraved oxidized sterling silver, leather, 2017
rings and bracelet, hand engraved oxidized sterling silver, 2017
the Stone Age contemporary jeweller asks his father and mother;
are you dying for me to wear you?, pendant, hand engraved oxidized sterling silver, leather, 2017
when a contemporary jeweller falls in a forest, who cares!, pendant, hand engraved oxidized sterling silver, leather
talismamulets (#1-5), pendants, hand engraved oxidized sterling silver, leather, 2017
stable meal, hand engraved pewter and modified found metal and wood objects, 2017
volcanic love #1-2, spinning rings, hand engraved oxidized sterling silver, 2017
crustacean’s #4, earrings, hand engraved oxidized sterling silver, 2017
collection of earrings, pendants, and rings, hand engraved oxidized sterling silver, leather, found objects, 2017