Ringing The Changes 2024

March 23rd – 30th June

Ringing The Changes is an exhibition of internationally renowned British-based jewellers designing distinctly modern rings, complimenting both the contemporary and the traditional. The exhibition has been a regular feature at the gallery and now in its tenth year it is set to feature six incredible designers. Sustainability is important with the designers using materials that are sourced as ethically as possible. We look forward to welcoming you soon.

Warm Wishes, Victoria & Team

 

Featured Exhibitors:

 

Ayshe Brandts

 A former landscape architect, Ayshe’s work is heavily influenced by her experience of growing up by the beach on a Mediterranean Island, and her consequent love nature. Using pebbles and shell fragments collected on her favourite beach and twigs and botanical elements discovered on weekend walks, Ayshe creates jewellery to spark a deep emotional reaction, and a desire to own one of her creations. 

The unique aspect of Ayshe’s jewellery is the fact that, although inspired by nature, each piece is carefully honed, sculpted and hand polished to produce a piece that is not an exact copy, but an idealised version of nature. Her resulting jewellery is understated, sublimely beautiful, sometimes edgy, but always wearable. Ayshe strives to achieve the ideal balance between form and function.

 

Emily Thatcher

Using traditional hand-fabrication techniques and utilising colours of both stone and precious metal Emily draws the eye around the designs, exploring both negative and positive space. Every component in Emilys jewellery is either hand forged or sand cast as a one-off. The creation of a new piece often begins with alloying the gold in the studio to her own rich hue which has become the signature of her work. She selects unique gem material for each design, working to expose the honesty of the stone - the inclusions and fractures, responding to these innate characteristics rather than neglecting them. Emily creates voluminous settings, in which she seats the stone, giving space to admire their many aspects. The placement of the stone in the setting parallels the microscopic structures that are so fascinating to her. The interplay of light & shadow is another important aspect of her metal work; using gentle curves, intersected by flat plains, creating a simultaneously visually stimulating & tactile finish.

Originally from Cambridge, Emily studied a BA Hons in Silversmithing, Jewellery & Allied Crafts at The Sir John Cass Department of Art & Design in London and now works from her studio in Sheffield exhibiting her work both nationally and internationally.

 

Gerlinde Huth

Using traditional goldsmithing techniques like piercing, forming and soldering, Gerlinde hand fabricates a broad range of jewellery in both silver and gold from wire and sheet.

She has always been fascinated with the property of silver that allows her to create a variety of textures. By giving the surface different finishes through polishing, satinising etching and oxidisation and combining them it creates a beautiful landscape of shades and textures in one piece.

Lately, Gerlinde has explored the contrasting effect of silver juxtaposed with oxidised silver set within simple geometric shapes. Using simple visual language, minimal lines and repetitive units she creates pieces that are worn in harmony with the wearer.

She studied Jewellery Design at Middlesex University and went on to the Royal College of Art to receive her Masters Degree.

 

Kim Styles

Now living in the rural Isle of Wight, Kim graduated from Sir John Cass in London with an Honours Degree in Jewellery, Silversmithing and Allied Crafts.  She worked with two well-established London jewellers before setting up as a bespoke jeweller some years ago.

Kim makes one-off botanical inspired organic necklaces and rings, inspired by her love of the countryside around her. She uses a combination of traditional silversmithing and jewellery techniques.  Hand-pierced flowers and leaves are cut from gold and silver, then formed using hammers and steel tools.   Tiny detailed leaves with engraved veins and closely observed plants are brought to life with a freedom of design and manufacture.  Kim works in gold and silver and accepts commissions. 

One of the highlights of Kim's career was being a featured jeweller on BBC2's All that Glitters, season One.

 

Lynne MacLachlan

Lynne MacLachlan Studio produces colourful, sculptural jewellery and objects, thoughtfully designed and made to bring colour and joy into your life. Our pieces range from accessible everyday jewellery to collectable contemporary craft pieces to large-scale interior installations.
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Lynne takes a creative approach with digital tools and materials, exploring and pushing the capabilities of these, using bespoke software tools and 3D printing to materialise complex forms. Combining these tools with meticulous hand-finishing techniques, such as dying, polishing and construction, elevates the pieces to become artful pieces of cutting-edge design that endure.
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After a degree in aerospace engineering, Lynne returned to education to study jewellery and metalwork design, with a desire to reconnect with materials and making. Following this Lynne completed an MA at the prestigious Royal College of Art and completed a PhD with the highly regarded design department of the Open University, researching how designer-makers find creative opportunities through tools and applying these strategies to multi-material 3D printing.
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Lynne’s work has been recognised with awards from the Goldsmiths Craft and Design Council, the Scottish International Education Trust, a Dewar Arts Award to fund her studies at the Royal College of Art and most recently a maker bursary from the Inches Carr Trust. She has exhibited widely in the UK, Europe and America, with organisations such as the Craft Scotland, the Crafts Council, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the National Centre for Craft and Design and the London Design Festival. Pieces of Lynne’s work are held in the V&A collection, on permanent display at the new V&A Dundee in a dedicated multi-media exhibit, and in the craft collection of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

 

Poppy Norton

 

Poppy Norton makes design-led, statement jewellery from her North London workshop.

Poppy’s work follows a pared back, modernist approach to design. Clean lines, smooth surfaces and basic geometric shapes are applied using a bold scale to create precise, confident pieces that are designed to be noticed.

Having originally trained in Product Design at Central Saint Martins, Poppy went on to work as an Interior Stylist, Art Director and Trend Reporter for a wide range of clients including The Guardian, Grand Designs Magazine, Channel 4 and WGSN.

Eighteen years of styling experience and two children later, Poppy was keen to embrace new challenges and return to her designer-maker roots. She headed back to the workshop and started her training as a jewellery designer at Morley College in 2016.

Immediately championed by UK galleries, fashion stylists and design influencers including Erica Davies, Kate Watson-Smyth and Emmanuelle Morgan (‘The Designerist’), Poppy’s jewellery has been shown at Paris Fashion Week, featured in both design and lifestyle magazines, made multiple television appearances on programmes such as Afterlife and The Great Pottery Throwdown and there are even rumours of it making a cameo in Star Wars.

In 2022 Poppy’s work was given further recognition when she was selected by the Goldsmiths’ Centre to take part in Shine: ‘celebrating the UK’s most promising talent in jewellery and silversmithing, hand-picked for their talent and skill’, this was then followed in 2023 by an invitation to participate in the Goldsmiths’ Fair.

 

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