Ron Arad Rocks!: A Selection of New Jewellery

Louisa Guinness Gallery is delighted to present Ron Arad Rocks!; a solo exhibition of new jewellery by internationally renowned artist, architect and designer Ron Arad. The exhibition will offer unique and editioned works including necklaces, bracelets and earrings made from silicon, laser sintered polyamide, quartz, gold and silver.

Ron Arad Rocks! is a culmination of the artist's most recent work in jewellery and focuses on three separate projects; Rocks, Naja and Hot Ingo. Like his large-scale work, each project combines material innovation, intelligent and beautiful design with the artist's inviolable sense of humour.

Far from the precious stones the title suggests, Arad's Rocks series are made from solid silicon. Though the silicon is soft and pliable to the touch, each piece appears heavy and dangerously jagged; the effect is of bare shards of glass hanging a breath from the wearer's skin.  Not until the viewer has the piece in their hands are they able to detect Arad's sophisticated manipulation of silicon. Far from smashing and threading glass, he chips away at a plain of prepared silicon, shaving each fragment off. 

The impression of opaque or coloured glass is created by dropping lengths of coloured or graphically patterned silk into the silicon, adding an ingenious layer to the optical illusion. Sculpted by the hands of the maker each work is unique varying in shape, color and form.

The Hot Ingo earrings and Hot Ingo Necklace derive from Arad's early experimentation with laser sintered polyamide and rapid prototyping in Not made by hand not made in China launched in Milan over a decade ago. One step in the artist's long exploration of what computers and machines are able to achieve, the necklace and earrings take their name and inspiration from Arad's long standing friend and collaborator Ingo Maurer.

"I have always been inspired by Ron's work," says Guinness."I am astonished by his consistent ability to solve practical problems with simplicity, intelligence and aesthetic panache. Take Naja not only beautiful and wearable but an ingenious solution to the middle aged drama of short sightedness."

Naja, the final series, is a magnifying glass pendant made of a solid quartz lens, surrounded by a serpentine coil of silver or vermeil. The work is named after the distinctive "be-spectacled" markings on the hood of a Naja cobra. Not only a beautiful object, artwork and jewel, with a typically Aradian twist it can also be used to decipher a cocktail menu. 

Ron Arad Rocks! | Ron Arad x Louisa Guinness Gallery | London 2016

from Louisa Guinness Gallery on Vimeo