Juukan Tears – Offcuts
After using a jewellers saw that is 0.25mm wide to hand saw around 200m of steel, I linked the cut pieces back together again to form a portrait of the headquarters of the biggest iron ore producer in Australia. To make the portrait, and the 4,600 tears that emanated from it, I cobbled together four separate sheets of recycled corrugated steel. One was swallowed practically whole, while the others left a few offcuts. Some of them were huge sheets with all corrugations intact, and others were small, even dainty. Jewellery scale.
The very limited edition Juukan Tears Offcuts jewellery works are made from these. They are as they fell from the bench, with small jewellery fittings added to make thirty unique and eminently wearable pieces of art.
See these at the opening of:
The Indian Ocean Craft Triennial
Curiosity and Rituals of the Everyday
from 6pm Thursday the 9th of September, at the John Curtin Gallery. They will be on sale beside my work Juukan Tears until the 31st of October, the full the duration of the exhibition, or until sold out.
To make inquiries about the works and for a full price list get in touch with the gallery store, or me, and I can put you in contact with the team there.
2 responses to “Juukan Tears Offcuts”
Hi Melissa. Looking at the Juukan project on instagram I didn’t quite get it but on your website it comes across with clarity (and this is my first time on your website – accessed via the online Garland magazine). I greatly admire your ability to work out a creative approach to critical or political commentary based on events and places and then to turn it into jewellery and objects. It’s a rare gift in the visual arts. Your video on the 1.1.2017 work speaks with the same clarity without the slightest hint of artspeak and further boosts my admiration of your abilities.
Thank you David travelling across and looking into all these pieces, I really appreciate it. And your words. It means an awful lot, coming from you. Thank you.
I understand that my work is sometimes complex and I want to be able to advocate for it. I also know that the work itself is obviously a communication, but being in the tiny corner of the art world that we inhabit there are not many people around to amplify, investigate and interpret.