LEEDS GUIDE
July 2002
Eccentrinkets
A
slice of Barcelona comes to Saltaire
Jewellery
by six Catalan designers comes to Kath Libbert Jewellery Gallery
in Saltaire this month as part of an exchange with the renowned
Hipotesi Gallery in Barcelona. Xavier Ines' brooches could either
be seen as "jewellery to play with or toys to wear". Designs include
his Golden Retriever with Christmas tree, beach ball and toy train
or his giraffe with a doll's house for a torso and palm tree for
a tail.
Silvia Piva's 18ct gold neckpieces and rings encase real roses and
pearls to conjure up the magic of these sensuous and precious love
tokens. Grego Garcia Tabar exhibits mixedmedia neckpieces which
she describes as "stories in another format [. . .] innermost stories
made real". Her 'I ate it because it was mine' plays with religious
iconography, almost shrine-like with its tiny white flowers and
gilded frame.
Alongside this are Carmen Amador's 18ct gold and silver brooches
in the form of boats, linear minimalism from Montse Marin and Milena
Acosta's oxidised silver and enamel brooches and earrings inspired
by "everyday corners inhabited by transitory inhabitants".
The show reveals the contrasts between contemporary British and
Catalan jewellery, namely, as Maria Lluisa Sameranch (owner of Hipotesi
Gallery) observes, the difference between the Britons' subtlety
and sobriety and the more baroque and less restrained Hispanic designs.
4 July to 1 September, Kath Libbert Jewellery Gallery, Saltaire
Rich Jevons
