Please join us for a talk with visiting artist Aurélie Guillaume on Friday evening March 31st at 7 pm In The Gallery at Brooklyn Metal Works.
Aurélie Guillaume is a French-Canadian jeweller, enamellist and illustrator from Montréal. Most recently Aurélie’s work was exhibited at The Gallery at Reinstein|Ross in the solo show “Mauricette, The Giants, and Other Frivolous Tales: The Jewelry of Mlle Guillaume” this past February. Aurélie will be returning to New York this spring to take part in the annual Museum of Arts and Design’s jewelry exhibition and sale LOOT 2017. Aurélie was also recently featured in “Tooning into Enamel | Zachery Lectenberg and Aurélie Guillaume” an article by Toni Greenbaum for Metalsmith magazine.
My work celebrates the history of enamelling and its longstanding tradition of storytelling dating back most notably to the Byzantine era, where enamelling was used to depict religious icons. Using these traditional techniques, my work revives the medium through a contemporary context fuelled by street art, comics, pop art and counter culture. Employing a combination of jewellery techniques and illustration, my work mixes high and low art, while transporting viewers into a world more colourful and dreamlike than our own. Through the process of enamelling, my illustrations transcend the two-dimensional realm of paper and are given new life in the physical world as wearable objects. With this work, I am reviving the traditions of enamelling, as well as bringing sculpture and illustration into the context of contemporary jewellery.
After completing her diploma at École de Joaillerie de Montréal, Aurélie went on to pursue her BFA at NSCAD University where she majored in jewellery design and metalsmithing. Upon graduating, her work was selected as the winner of L.A. Pai Gallery’s 12th National student jewellery competition in Canada and was shortlisted for the BKV Prize in Germany. Aurélie’s work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally throughout North America and Europe and has recently been acquired by the Enamel Arts Foundation in Los Angeles, California, as part of their permanent collection. She is now residing and working in Chicago at the Lillstreet Art Center as the artist in residence until the end of the summer 2017.