surface portrait

925 silver, dry lint, silk, adhesive, 2019.

90 x 40 x 3mm

Dryer lint provides a contrast to the other materials in this body of work. It is a by-product of human activity in a house or apartment, a raw material that’s generated organically and without conscious effort. It offers a soft, textile quality to the pieces. Houses are comprised of hard and soft features; dryer lint is an appropriate material to suggest soft furnishings. Juxtaposed with harder materials, I consider that dryer lint, used in studio jewellery, will relate specifically to themes of the home for many millennials.

I achieved the contrast between soft and hard surfaces in ‘Surface Portrait’, where different surfaces on the front and back suggest an internal and an external space, typical of the home. The fused silver ‘rendered’ front of this piece, is in-cased in a frame, which gives the piece a portrait quality, linking the idea of self with the textures that can be found in the home. The dryer lint on the back surface is visually and texturally intriguing and evokes soft furnishings such as insulation or carpet.