Please join us for a talk with visiting artist Timothy Veske-McMahon on Sunday December 2 at 3pm in the Gallery at Brooklyn Metal Works. 

We’re pleased to have Timothy Veske-McMahon return to BKMW to speak in support of his recent exhibition, Soft Spot, at Gallery Loupe in Montclair, NJ. Veske-McMahon is a good friend of Brooklyn Metal Works. He has been a popular instructor and last spoke here in 2015 when his exhibition mirror milk was In the Gallery.

American artist Timothy Veske-McMahon consistently challenges the body, the heart, and the mind with profound concepts, using jewelry as a vehicle. His newest series, Soft Spot, probes the human dilemma, still further, by addressing memory rather than presence. To Veske-McMahon a soft spot is “a fondness, predilection, and bias. The sore and tender weaknesses that define us. An obscuring blur in vision, memory, or ability.”

– Gallery Loupe

About the Artist

Timothy Veske-McMahon is an Assistant Professor at Rhode Island School of Design, where he is Graduate Program Director for Jewelry and Metalsmithing. He holds a MFA in Metalsmithing from Cranbrook Academy of Art (2013) and BFA in Sculpture (with honors) from Pratt Institute (2004). In 2013 he was Artist-in-Residence at the Estonian Academy of Arts in the Jewelry and Blacksmithing Department. Veske-McMahon has had solo exhibitions at Brooklyn Metal Works in Brooklyn, New York; Beyond Fashion Gallery in Antwerp, Belgium; and Flat Gallery in Bratislava, Slovakia and participated in group shows in Amsterdam, Stockholm, Munich, Tbilisi, and Beijing in addition to Asheville, North Carolina and Boston, Massachusetts. He has won numerous awards and received several grants; his work is included in the collection of the Yale University Art Gallery.

Please join us for a talk with visiting artist Tehri Tolvanen Saturday September 29 at 2pm in the Gallery at Brooklyn Metal Works.

Known for her use of unusual materials in conjunction with refined technical abilities, Tolvanen’s work often explores the connection/conflict between humans and nature. These recreations of natural forms become jewelry that is familiar and foreign, recognizable landscapes that are wearable and intriguing.

Tolvanen is traveling to NY in support of her exhibition opening at Ornamentum Gallery in Hudson, NY on Sept. 22.

Originally from Finland, Tolvanen currently lives and works in France.

TERHI TOLVANEN & PHILIP SAJET
Not Everything Is Nice
September 22 – October 22, 2018 

Ornamentum Gallery
506 Warren St.    
Hudson, NY 12534  

Please join us for an artist talk with Kerianne Quick In the Gallery September 7 at 7pm.

On Transmutations:

When the Dutch VOC / WIC sailed up the Hudson River to trade with the colonists and native tribes of New Netherlands the ships often carried a ballast of brick. Those that were usable were traded, those that were not – were dumped on the riverbanks. Fast-forward two and a half centuries – the clay deposits of the Mid-Hudson Valley were dug and fired into the bricks that built much of Manhattan as we know it. The evidence of these now defunct brickyards dot the banks of the Hudson River from New Jersey to Albany – piles of bricks, industrial castoffs – native clay fired – but unsuitable for construction. These bricks, foraged out of the Hudson River, are a connection – to the post-industrial landscape and regional histories; but also a way to explore inheritance and transformation. 

The bricks used in the series Transmutations – dating from the early to mid 20th century – were foraged out of the river at Kingston Point and along the Rondout Creek. They were hand-cut and carved, and combined with heirloom pearls, shell, silk, silver, and gold. Through stringing and pearl-knotting techniques, the work draws from both the adornment ideals of the Dutch Golden Age and the ceremonial adornment of the native Lenape Tribes of the Hudson River Valley. Like the act of colonization – Transmutations, mashes together disparate cultures using native materials. Each piece references an uncomfortable combination of European and Native American adornments to create something unique to the Mid-Hudson River Valley. 

– Kerianne Quick

 Through her creative practice, Kerianne Quick aims to tell hidden stories through objects – by considering source, conveyance, and material specificity. Her research is rooted in exploring craft and materiality as cultural phenomena with an emphasis on jewelry and personal adornment. Kerianne has produced several bodies of material specific work considering subject matters that range from communal sheep farming practices in the Orkney Isles to the derelict brickyards of New York’s Hudson Valley. She is currently researching contemporary forms of portable wealth. Kerianne Quick is the Assistant Professor of Jewelry and Metalwork at San Diego State University. Current projects include Craft Desert, a handmade zine exploring the craft landscape co-produced with Adam John Manley.

Kerianne Quick’s work is exhibited widely, most recently at LA FRONTERA: Encounters Along the Border, Museum of Arts & Design, New York, NY; Heavy Metal – Women to Watch 2018, National Museum of Women In The Arts, Washington D.C.; and  The Language of Things, Dowse Art Museum, Wellington, New Zealand.

Please join us for an evening with visiting artist Tina Rath. Friday July 13 at 7pm In the Gallery at Brooklyn Metal Works. Rath will be discussing her creative practice and the development of her newest works The Order of Beauty opening at Sienna Patti. 

The collection, Order of Beauty, consists of nine drawings and nine pieces of jewelry that take inspiration from the Islamic usage of geometry and pattern to elevate the mind.  In the Islamic world, these visually rich forms, most often seen in mosques and spiritually important areas, are intended to remind us of the infinite beauty and expansion of the Universe. For Rath,  the pursuit of beauty feels like a necessary and radical act and the order and structure of the layers provide solace and hope in an increasingly chaotic and unstable world.

Tina Rath received her MFA from the Sandberg Instituut in Amsterdam and her BFA from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Her work has been exhibited internationally including the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam and the Portland Museum of Art in Portland, Maine and is included in the permanent collections of the Mint Museum in Charlotte, NC and the Museum of Art and Design in New York, NY as well as in many private collections. Her work can also be seen in numerous magazines and books. Rath’s work has been supported by grants from the Maine Arts Commission. From 2002-2010, Rath was an Associate Professor at Maine College of Art in Portland, Maine and was the Chair of the Department of Metalsmithing and Jewelry from 2006-2009. She has also held faculty appointments at the Pacific Northwest College of Art in 2011 and at the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 2013.

Please join us for an artist talk with Marina Elenskaya, founder and creative director of Current Obsession. 

In the past five years Current Obsession – Dutch jewellery magazine and platform – challenged and changed the way contemporary artistic jewellery is photographed, presented and experienced. By making connections with the neighbouring creative fields, like fashion, art, design, photography and fiction, CO places contemporary jewellery in the larger context of today’s visual culture. Appreciated for its experimental approach and unconventional style, CO earned a reputation of inspirators and influencers in the field of jewellery.

As Current Obsession’s founder and creative director, Marina Elenskaya will offer a lecture at Brooklyn Metal Works on June 16 at 2pm. This lecture is rooted in a creative rebellion against the age-old ways in which contemporary jewellery is seen, presented, perceived, and photographed.

Marina Elenskaya
Saturday June 16 @ 2pm
Suggest donation $5 students/members $10 general public

Please join us for an artist talk with MJ Tyson in support of her show, The Last Objects, June 10 at 2pm In the Gallery at Brooklyn Metal Works.

MJ Tyson’s work is centered on the relationship between people and their possessions, and makes use of unconventional casting, re-use, and record keeping. The Last Objects features works from two main series:  boxes from Inheritance and Dust to Dust, and vessels from Homes. Each work is comprised of personal objects left behind by deceased residents, sited at specific locations, and named accordingly.  Looking into works like 102 Garden Hills Drive gives the viewer a glimpse of this past and offers the opportunity to reconstruct narratives with the remnants. 

Artist Statement

All material carries a past. Whether we acknowledge this lineage or not, it exists. It may be to our advantage — as a way of orienting ourselves in our world — to consider the cycles of creation and destruction intrinsic to the objects that surround us.

Our individual lives are fleeting. We use objects to extend ourselves beyond the boundaries of our bodies and lifespans. We ask these objects to lend us immortality, and we practice collection, conservation, and restoration to that end. In reality, nothing is immune to change. Objects also die.

Embracing the destructive side of creation, MJ Tyson practices the reincarnation of personal objects. The resulting jewelry and vessels hold evidence of their past lives within their new forms. These are messy situations in neat packages, ready to go back into circulation. The last objects will become the next.

MJ Tyson is an artist and jeweler from New Jersey. She received her BFA from the Jewelry + Metalsmithing Department at Rhode Island School of Design in 2008 and returned to earn her MFA in 2017.  Interests in value and material culture have led MJ to the worlds of art appraisal and museum conservation. Research in these outside disciplines informs her studio work.

Please join us for an artist talk with Kyle Patnaude in support of his show, Till the Night, April 22 at 1pm In the Gallery at Brooklyn Metal Works.

Kyle Patnaude’s work explores the emotive and humanistic coding of objects, specifically a certain “queerness” pertaining to the cultural guise of hypermasculinity. In Till The Night Patnaude works with queer narratives, from inherently counter-culture gay tropes to the Homoromanticism of masculine power within authoritarian regimes. Using historical figures as touch points Patnaude constructs representational characters to develop this dialog throughout the exhibition. 

Included in these investigations are themes of persecution. Says Patnaude “Where much of queer work celebrates the progressive gay narrative, I choose to cultivate from darker regions of my community and culture. For several years Russia and the southern Republic of Chechnya have committed hundreds of acts of abduction, torture, and murder of men suspected of being homosexual. The exhibition features nineteen aluminum photo prints of gay and trans men with their eyes pixelated. The audience determines their identities through implication as victim or criminal, their erasure, or preservation of anonymity—and themselves as either activist or bystander.”

The objects portrayed within Patnaude’s work often examine public elements such as city streets, restrooms, and parks, providing a subtext of “queerness” and double meaning. Till The Night includes three turned aluminum truncheons, the weapon of police and symbol of authority, as tokens of masculine prowess. These pieces are wearable as necklaces as is the rubber ‘sautoir’ made from a recurrent symbol in Patnaude’s work, a manhole cover pattern.  The latter is shown as a garland on Jacksie, a queer skinhead, the Alt-Right caricature of gay fascism in Patnaude’s narrative.

Kyle Patnaude is currently based in Portland, Maine as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Maine College of Art. He completed his BFA degree in Sculpture from Pratt Institute in 2006 and in 2012 received an MFA in Metalsmithing from the University of Wisconsin Madison. Embracing a hybrid practice as a sculptor rooted in the rich traditional methods of metalsmithing, the work unites contemporary sculptural forms with the skill and elegance of precious metalworking.

We are so pleased to have Helen Britton, internationally acclaimed artist and jeweler, returning to give a lecture about her work on Friday evening March 23rd at 7pm.

Helen Britton is known for assembling objects, collecting, and bringing new life to trinkets, charms and amulets. “I see in these components all the effort, humour, joy and failure of our existence. They seek out in the most unpretentious way everything that has driven our species since time immemorial, right back down to plastic versions of shells so very similar to those found in the Blombos cave, strung together 70 thousand years ago.”

Helen began her artistic journey at Curtin University in her home country of Australia before moving to Munich to complete her postgraduate study at the Academy of Fine Arts with Professor Otto Künzli. She currently lives and works in Munich and her work can be found at The Art Gallery of South Australia, Stedelijk Museum, Stichting Françoise van den Bosch, Auckland Museum, The National Gallery of Australia, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art to name a few.

Helen’s work is truly breathtaking and we hope that you can join us for this special event!

Helen Britton

Please join us at 3pm on January 21 for an artist talk with Nils Hint in support of his exhibition, Nowhere, In the Gallery at Brooklyn Metal Works.

Hint’s most recent jewelry pieces embody the iron work that he is known for in their sculptural and functional aspects. Working with found objects that performed utilitarian service as tools and cutlery, Hint repurposes these items into new wearable formats. His latest focus in Nowhere is on the kinetic relationship between static material and human force. The malleability of iron is evidenced in the gestural qualities present in these bold new pieces. Hint’s mastery elevates these once humble objects and pays homage to a noble material worthy of wearing and preserving as jewelry.

On Nowhere :

Somewhere in my latest work I started focusing on the kinetic relationship between material and human.  A moving man staring at the static lump of matter. Although, this intrigue is nothing new to me. I guess It has always been present in my work in a way that I am not aware of.  

It started when I was around 5 years old. I remember sitting on the huge stack of brick stones and beating some aluminum wire to be flat with the half broken stone from the same pile. I did several shapes what I lost later. What remained was the satisfaction from being able to manipulate this material so easy. Now,  when I am more consciously tracking the origins of my actions I see that they all start in the middle of nowhere. The remote place I spent most of my childhood.

-Nils Hint

Nils Hint is an artist, experimental blacksmith, and art jeweler who lives and works in Tallinn, Estonia. His work is exhibited internationally with noteable inclusion in “Schmuck 2015” Munich, Germany; and “CULT”, Stedelijk Museum’s-Hertogenbosch, Amsterdam, Netherlands. A select list of gallery exhibitions include ATTA Gallery, Bangkok, Thailand; Gallery RA, Amsterdam, Netherlands; Gallery Four, Gothenburg, Sweden; and the Ruthin Craft Center, Ruthin, United Kingdom. His work is in the collection of the Estonian Museum of Applied Art and Design; Art St. Urban Art Center, St. Urban, Switzerland; Gallery of Art in Legnica, Poland, International Collection of Contemporary Jewellery; as well as private collections. Hint has won grants, prizes, and residencies for his outstanding work and has taught workshops internationally at Hiko Mizuno College of Jewelry, Tokyo, Japan; Rhode Island School of Design; and HDK Steneby, Sweden. In addition to his studio practice, Hint is currently an Associate Professor of Blacksmithing in the Jewellery and Blacksmithing department at the Estonian Academy of Arts.