20 April–10 May 2024
Our spring showcase features new work by Disa Allsopp, Cathy Timbrell, and Cristina Zani
Disa Allsopp
Disa likes to work with Silver and 18ct Gold in their raw, organic state. Fascinated by the natural textures and colours created when the metals are molten, she uses techniques such as hammering, bleaching (to whiten silver pieces) and oxidising (to blacken silver pieces) in order to shed the glossy look so often associated with gold and silver jewellery and create her subtle but very striking and collectable pieces.
Always inspired by her natural surroundings and the everyday, be it indigenous materials washed up on the beaches of her native Bermuda, a twirling mass of pasta (her spaghetti range) or the human form, Disa makes the everyday precious and her abstract pieces manage to exude both energy and stillness.
Cathy Timbrell
Cathy began work as a research scientist and teacher but her hobby all through her life was making jewellery. Her scientific background often informed the way she worked and gave her a fascination for experimentation. However, since 2008 she has been able to devote all of her time to jewellery making and enamelling in the workshop/studio she built in Buckinghamshire.
"My jewellery has been inspired by patterns and objects found around us, a landscape, parts of modern buildings and the shore line. Working with techniques such as reticulated and fused silver, my work sometimes takes on an organic feel which allows me to represent a scene such as a shoreline. More recently my pieces have taken a more structural or modern architectural feel and I include fused 24 carat gold (Keum Boo) in some of the simpler pieces."
Cristina Zani
"Inspired by Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities, my work is a reflection on the urban environment,its geometries and unique stories. The series My Seoul is influenced by the contrasting architecture of South Korea and reflects my personal experience of its cities.
"The choice and juxtaposition of materials, shapes and colours echoes its landscape: sombre modern buildings intertwined with colourful and ancient wooden temples and palaces. Like those buildings, my pieces show the vulnerability of wood and metal when exposed to time and elements; the layers and colours that slowly transform with the passing of years. Simple in form, but rich in stories and complexities."
