Raluca Grada - Emandi

RALUCA GRADA-EMANDI (ABOUT)

Jewellery artist and spatial performance designer Raluca Grada graduated from the Interprofessional Studio at the Architectural Association School of Architecture and received her MA in Goldsmithing, Silversmithing, Metalwork and Jewellery from the Royal College of Art, London.

Her work has been exhibited in the UK, The Netherlands, Italy and Germany.

Raluca works and lives in London.

http://ralucagrada.net/

Works:

4 ACTS JEWELLERY

"The collection describes sequences of meaning in the life of the final piece. Each act represents the slow renunciation of familiar formal interpretations of beauty and value to reveal new poetics within jewellery. It plays with material and immaterial, static and dynamic, jewellery and space using silver as a symbolic neutral material for jewellery."

material: silver
size: undefined

THE 5TH ACT - OF A JEWELL

Ineffable conditions one cannot express in words, for they refer to aspects of existence too abstract to be adequately communicated. Ineffability can be described by what it is not, rather than by what it is.
Capturing glimpses of the ineffable in jewellery necessitates dematerialization, allowing beauty and value to move away from the qualities and expressions given to the material, into a more abstract, intengible realm. The ephemeral appearance of this jewellery inspires the unsettling play of an undefinable possession.

The jewellery is the play of silver dust particles in the air, slowly released from a device hidden behind the ear.
The silver powder adorns the body through its performative appearance and through the temporary forms it creates while accumulating on the body. Its presence as adornment is wrapped in uncertainty, while its value constantly dissipates in the wind leaving the body naked of jewellery. This challenges the issue of possession regarding the ownership of both the ornament and value, triggering fascination within discomfort, highlighting both the necessity of social extravagance and of possessions. This jewellery celebrates the beauty and not the possession, while its value ironically increases by letting go of the value.

FINELY GRAFTED JEWELLERY

Wearing a sample of foreign skin on the natural skin of the body questions the relevance of the material. Highlighting the human skin as a material valuable on its own, apart from the body, raises questions such as: Is it skin? Who's skin? Why dark and fair skin? Is it a reaction of the body which transformed itself into jewellery to respond to our needs?


The owner and the viewer experience the unsettling contradiction between wearing an eccentric piece of jewellery and its overall subtle, quiet look which questions the very existence of any jewellery.

WEARING SKIN, YOUNG SKIN

To illustrate youth, I have played with the contrast between the young skin captured in a necklace shaped jewellery and the older skin of the aged body. The preciousness of the jewellery relies on the indisputable value of youth, being able to replace diamonds in value at a senior age. The focus on material and form seems to fade only to give way to thoughts about our own relation to youth.

material: skin textured silicone