BIOGRAPHY

I am a contemporary jewellery artist, born and raised on the ancient plains of the Karoo. I am continually inspired by the nature culture entanglement. Growing up in a farming community in a semi-desert I have always been aware of this deep connection we have to matter and the natural world. As designers, we are able to cultivate and advocate for a better future through our design choices. I am currently doing my Masters in Visual Arts, where I look at regenerative design theory in the hopes of finding a more holistic approach to creating contemporary jewellery pieces. Jewellery as a creative practice has been around for centuries to communicate something about place, identity, belonging and beliefs. Our ancestors used materials from their natural surroundings, but as technologies and worldviews developed - so did jewellery as a medium. By acknowledging the good and bad systems from the past, I choose to create contemporary jewellery pieces from natural textiles and found objects to cultivate a more regenerative Karoo culture. Through a systems-thinking approach, my work constantly evolves and changes. I believe that our design and material choices have the ability to: not only inspire but to impact and play into matters of ever-evolving nature. As an artist and designer, I hope to create work that extends the Karoo environment's affect - as a responsible custodian of its ecology.  As I investigate the act of storytelling through culture and science, the greater landscape can almost be understood as a form of visual storytelling. It visually communicates something of its cultural and natural history through matter, objects and text. Jewellery as an object interacts in a highly intimate manner with the body. The body becomes the object’s landscape and the jewellery becomes an artefact of cultural significance to the wearer. My practice-led work uses jewellery as a modern artefact to tell the story of the landscape through a visual narrative that can exist in close proximity to the body. By using materials directly found in the area I hope to reference this landscape through my jewellery practice and extend homage to a new field.