Finding jewels from the land
![Pennie Jagiello with found object on natural salt flats, Karratha, on residency in the Pilbara, 2015.](https://images.thewest.com.au/publication/YA-118017/57e1e0ba05c00_b88244247z.1_20160921091552_000_g0vmmp17.1_1-1bu3o5p.jpg?imwidth=810&impolicy=wan_v3)
An exhibition displaying unique pieces created in the Pilbara by contemporary jewellers will open in Perth tomorrow.
The Worn Land: Four Contemporary Jewellers in the Pilbara exhibition will be open for public viewing at The Goods Shed in Claremont until November 16.
Worn Land exhibition curator and FORM regional manager Mollie Hewitt said the exhibition would display contemporary jewellery from four jewellers, none of whom had been to the Pilbara before. “(The jewellers) have responded to (the Pilbara) landscape through the creation of works that are very textural and immersive and sensual,” she said.
“It’s about their bodies and our bodies being in such a highly dramatic landscape like the Pilbara.”
Throughout 2014, Melbourne- based artists Yuko Fujita, Nicky Hepburn, Pennie Jagiello and Natalia Milosz-Piekarska undertook a series of residencies in which they hosted workshops for the community and created contemporary jewellery inspired by the landscape.
Ms Hewitt travelled to the Pilbara with the jewellers and watched as they created unique pieces from the land. “I was there while they were wandering through the Pilbara and picking up bits of amazing bits of shells or debris or crazy bits of metal that they found,” she said.
“They made these amazingly beautiful objects out of them — really delicate, intricate objects out of what you’d normally just walk straight past.”
Jagiello used exclusively what she had found on the landscape to make her pieces which will be exhibited in Worn Land.
“She’s made these incredibly, beautifully and delicate and stunning artworks out of what is essentially littering the ground,” Ms Hewitt said.
“(She’s) kind of really transforming these materials that otherwise would do great damage to the landscape into these really beautiful tributes to the beauty of the landscape.”
Ms Hewitt said that the four artists’ common knack and passion for using recycled materials in their work was the inspiration behind the project.
“The reason that we got them up there in the first place was to run workshops with the community,” she said.
“What we wanted to do was give people the skills to make artwork out of everyday objects with a minimal amount of tools.
“That’s why we chose those jewellers in particular because they all like to use found and repurposed materials in then what becomes precious contemporary jewellery.”
Worn Land will tour to the Port Hedland Courthouse Gallery next February.
For more information visit form.net.au.
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