Gallery 3

Jane Adam: Never The Same River

“I realised I wanted to make jewellery while sitting in the Tube one day in the Seventies, looking at the people opposite. It clicked that what really interested me as a maker were the various ways in which people chose to express their individuality in an increasingly homogenised world. It became my mission to make jewellery that reflected as honestly as possible my own experience of the richness and variety of contemporary life, in the hope that other people would find in it echoes of their own. To this day, nothing makes me prouder than seeing a piece of my work being worn and reinterpreted by a stranger.

For nearly forty years now, I have involved myself in innovation and experimentation with anodised aluminium, a metal that offers unique and infinite possibilities for colouration and mark making. However, more recently I have also been working with precious metals: silver, gold and bimetal (a fusion of the two). My work explores sensuality, both in the nature of the forms themselves and in how they feel when handled and worn. By becoming part of the wearer’s experience and self-expression, my jewellery is transformed and completed.

These days I am less focused on the demands of earning a living, and more than ever on personal satisfaction and the creation of pieces which have meaning to me. So I am pondering on my future direction as a jeweller as well as looking back at the past.”

The exhibition will feature a selection of archive pieces of Jane’s jewellery over the last thirty five years, alongside new work in precious metals and in dyed anodised aluminium.

In association with Bluecoat Display Centre.