Schwartz 1924

The idea for this exhibition, which explores the crossover of art into , came about during a conversation I had with my mother, Gail Schwartz. Why don’t we ask ten top South African artists to collaborate with Schwartz Jewellers to create a collection of artist-designed jewellery pieces? The idea stuck, and here we are. It has been an immense privilege for Gail and I to work so closely with Norman Catherine, Marco Cianfanelli, Michael Frampton, Faiza Galdhari, Diana Hyslop, Loren Kaplan, Dylan Lewis, Senzeni Marasela, Karel Nel and Walter Oltmann, all distinguished and respected artists. I am delighted at the unique range of artist- designed jewellery pieces that resulted. Each piece is the synthesis of individual artistic genius and the know-how that epitomises Schwartz Jewellers.

Gail, Robert and I are delighted in welcoming you to this exhibition of artist-designed jewellery pieces, handmade in Johannesburg. The information panels on each artist are there to offer greater insight into the pieces on show, especially the artists who conceived these luxurious objects and their working methods. A book is also available through Standard Bank Galleries. We would like to extend our most sincere and warm thanks to all those who have worked on this project, especially the wonderful team at Standard Bank, and in particular Barbara Freemantle and Cliff Shain for the photographs, and importantly, the late Professor Alan Crump who was my professor at the University of Witwatersrand Fine Arts Department in the 1980s, who supported and enabled my proposal for this exhibition.

Isa Schwartz Gesseau www.schwartzjewellers.com contact: 011 783 1717 / 083 600 4030 / [email protected] Norman Catherine (b. 1949, East London) studied graphic design at the East London Technical College Art School, but dropped out to work on his first solo exhibition, arranged by Cecil Skotnes and held at the now defunct Herbert Evans Gallery in Johannesburg in 1969. His work is held in numerous prominent collections, notably the Johannesburg Art Gallery, South African National Gallery – Cape Town, BHP Billiton – Johannesburg, Reserve Bank of South Africa – Pretoria, Museum of Modern Art and Brooklyn Museum – New York, Minneapolis Institute of Arts – USA and World Economic Forum – Davos.

Norman Catherine:

Norman Catherine’s art lends itself perfectly to the crossover from art into jewellery. Active since the early 1970s, his work is noted for its humour and biting social commentary; in the past two decades it has also become more self-consciously psychological and introspective. His work is highly regarded and has been variously described as “sci-fi”, “comical”, “violent”, “playful”, “satirical”, “anxious” and “brutish”.

Placing his work in an art historical context can be tricky – he draws on an irreverent mixture of influences,including Aboriginal, African, Mexican and Folk Art, as well as the visual language of comic books and graffiti art. Not following any movement, Norman is a true original.

After briefing him of our plans, he created a number of jewellery designs on his computer that left us breathless.

The first, a , incorporates Norman’s familiar pairing of cat and man, and is manufactured using yellow and enamel. The gold plate was pierced in our workshop with a space left for the enamel work in red. We pulled 18 yellow gold wire, and Gail selected tapered baguette white for the man’s eyes and a natural fancy cognac pear shaped for the cat’s eye.

The second piece, a , depicts a two-faced man confronting a demon on his shoulder. Norman uses positive and negative space so beautifully in this work, which is pierced out of white gold plate. We pavé set diamonds to accentuate the man’s silhouette with fine white diamonds and a natural black diamond eye. Marco Cianfanelli (b. 1970, Johannesburg) obtained his BA (Fine Art) from the University of Witwatersrand in 1992. Now widely collected, he started exhibiting in 1996 and has held six solo exhibitions to date. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the ABSA L’Atelier. Some of his large-scale public sculptures include Freedom Park – Pretoria, FORUM Homini at the Cradle of Humankind and Hollard Street Mall Project in central Johannesburg.

Marco Cianfanelli:

Renowned for his technically audacious sculptures, it may come as a surprise to learn that Marco Cianfanelli studied painting. After graduating from the University of the Witwatersrand in 1992, he began experimenting with sculpture.

Marco’s sculptural works, which employ organic and manmade materials, speak to the complex qualities that define life in contemporary South Africa. Broadly speaking, they investigate the relationship between beauty and the violence of consumption and self-preservation.

Characterised by his gallery as “fiercely dedicated to testing possibilities for artistic intervention in the public realm”, Marco is an enthusiastic collaborator, often working with architects and landscape designers.

His interest in architecture goes beyond the functional and engages with how “we express our- selves spatially”. “The use of razor wire is extensive and its function is obvious – the emphatic and aggressive demarcation of boundary and property.”

For his art into jewellery pieces Marco came to us with a variety of drawings and ideas. We excitedly opted for the barbed wire design. The symbolism is the key motif – the sharp-pointed wire barb – which is obvious in contemporary South Africa, where security is always top of mind.

The is however an affirming piece of jewellery; small and intricate, it is also delicate and precious. Undeniably beautiful and stylish, the ring’s distinctive barbs have been capped with two Marquise white diamonds – and could, if necessary, be used as protection.

Marco’s second piece, a barbed wire , was the outcome of some playful research at our workshop. We first created a maquette out of florists wire and then crafted the finished necklace out of white gold. The necklace features handmade 18 carat white gold wire, which was drawn in our work- shop. The barbs have been created using highly polished, white gold -plated wire and are capped with small round brilliant cut diamonds. Michael Frampton (b. 1965, Johannesburg) is a graduate of the Johannesburg Art, Ballet, Drama and Music School, where he graduated with distinctions in painting, graphics, sculpture and design. In 1990, aged 25, he established the design agency Framptons and later founded DDB South Africa, which became part of the DDB network in 1999. Mike sold his business in 2009 and is now a full-time artist. He has held solo shows of his art in Johannesburg, Cape Town and New York.

Michael Frampton:

An incurable raconteur, art offered Michael Frampton a refuge. Diagnosed with dyslexia at an early age he found art – a non verbal, expressive pursuit that does not entirely rely on codified logic.A committed “people watcher” who likes to draw what he sees, Michael’s fine charcoal nudes are a testament to his skill as a draughtsman. He is an equally skilled painter. Michael is also a keen photographer, digital technology fan, online editorialist and entrepreneur.

In the 1990s his company Framptons flourished, transforming from a small design company into a full-service advertising and marketing business, ploughing some of his windfall into the country’s then under-appreciated contemporary art scene. Michael’s name will forever be associated with the early careers of artists Kendell Geers and Candice Breitz. Michael’s publishing company, Chalkham Hill Press, published Geers’ first monograph, Argott, and also the widely referenced art book Grey Areas.

Michael chose to use slate slabs as his inspiration for this contribution. Working with Gail, Michael managed to find material to stand in for the slate. is a pale -yellow , more commonly known as fool’s gold, which was used to make marcasite jewellery. It looks like slate but has a more precious quality.

Michael’s pyrites pendant features an engraved image of a female form that has been filled with metallic pigment. The pendant is designed to be worn with a black leather plaited necklace that ties behind the nape of the neck. The leather plaited necklace is capped at each end with two tiny dice-shaped pyrites stones featuring a simple line engraved into the pyrites surface, in metallic yellow gold pigment, with the other in metallic white gold pigment. These dice hang from the back, but can be reversed and worn in front. One of the dice is removable, enabling the wearer to slip the main pendant from the leather. Faiza Galdhari (b. 1970, Durban) graduated with BA (Fine Art) from the University of Durban-Westville in Durban in 1992, and received her MA (Fine Art) degree in 1999. She has exhibited widely, notably in collaboration with Bronwyn Findlay and Daina Mabunda in 2002 and on curator Zayd Minty’s traveling group exhibition, A Place Called Home. Her work is held in collections of the Durban Art Gallery and Tatham Art gallery in Pietermaritzburg.

Faiza Galdhari:

An accomplished printmaker, Faiza Galdhari’s practice as an artist is rooted in her experiences and identity as a Muslim woman. Faiza has always actively pursued a Muslim way of life.

“My participation in this project began by attempting to visualise and conceive of a piece of jewellery which would be testimony to the concept of Imaan as an intrinsic part of the Muslim faith. I thought of the five fingers of the hand as relating to the five pillars of Islam. I then thought it would be fitting and entirely appropriate to design a bangle, which would signify Islam in its totality, linked in some way to the ring worn on the index finger of the right hand. I needed for it to be a spiritual exercise, an affirmation of my faith and its growth. It is also an act of Ibadah, or worship.”

Faiza’s art into jewellery piece consists of an ornate bangle and ring. The bangle is decorated with motifs common to Faiza’s richly decorated prints and explicitly references the elaborate design elements found in Islamic mosques. Gail and Faiza worked together in resolving the manufacture of the bangle, which includes a complex swoop, and decided on using a skeleton frame for the bangle. Made from 18-carat white and 22-carat yellow gold, the bangle incorporates black enamel detailing and pavé diamonds to enrich the decorative and precious quality of the piece. We further incor- porated , and to enhance the finished design.

The bangle is attached to a ring that is worn on the index finger, referred to by Muslims as the Shahadah because it is this finger that is raised in a pointed gesture during the act of prayer. The ring is attached to the bangle with a fine link removable gold chain. Diana Hyslop (b. 1949, Pretoria) is a painter and established film production manager. She studied painting at Bill Ainslie’s Johannesburg Art Foundation in the late 1980s and, following a year long residency at the Santa Monica Fine Arts Studios in California, started painting full time. In 2002, she joined the Fordsburg Artists’ Studios as a permanent tenant artist. She has had numerous solo shows and is represented in the Hollard, SAB Miller and Dimension Data collections, among others.

Diana Hyslop:

Painter Diana Hyslop evokes worlds that exist beyond the confines of the ordinary and commonplace. She explains: “In my early twenties I worked at Marvel Comics and Transworld Features in London. I loved the storyboard approach to narrative and the larger-than-life graphic quality of the comics, not to mention the metaphysical appeal of the superheroes.”

Following her four-year stint at Marvel comics, Diana briefly worked as a photographer.

She is also intrigued by the mystical connections that exist between humans and animals. Diana’s art into jewellery piece, a funky contemporary brooch, is an extension of this recurring theme.

Her jewellery piece is based on a 40 x 40cm painting titled The Protector, which shows a young man in a nectarine-coloured T-shirt. It is an image of a person with a wolf/dog head, and represents how we give our power to something or someone outside of ourselves in order to feel safe.

In translating the work into a jewellery piece, Diana decided to take her source image a step further using the stars for further inspiration. The brooch explicitly references the star Sirius. Colloquially know as the Dog Star, Sirius is the brightest star in the heavens. Gail and Diane together decided to use the blue to denote light- points around the figure, rendering it as a celestial protector.

It was Gail’s idea to have the Dog Star brooch hand-moulded from a resin in two colours, black and red. The arms of the Dog Star brooch were cast in the Schwartz Jewellers workshop and are in 18-carat white gold. The frame that fits around the Dog Star brooch is 18-carat white gold. A five-sided diamond-studded star was also fitted into the red T-shirt and natural fancy green diamonds set in the Dog Star’s eyes. Loren Kaplan (b. 1965, Johannesburg) obtained her Fine Arts degree in 1989 specialising in photography. In 2002 to 2006 she teamed up with Anthony Shapiro, establishing a successful commercial partnership. Currently working alone, Kaplan has exhibited widely and is represented in the collection of the Constitutional Court. Making Space, her 2008 solo exhibition of porcelain and stoneware at the Alliance Francaise, was organised by Isa Schwartz Gesseau.

Loren Kaplan:

Ceramist Loren Kaplan has been working with clay since the early 1990s.”I make vessels because containers are about potential. Defined spaces of emptiness that can be filled with something.” Her vessels are loaded with symbolism and suggestive of the opportunity and change we all experience during our lives.

For her contribution to this project Loren selected the distinctive seedpod of the opium poppy. Loren’s interest in this ornamental flower is not unrelated to her interest in space. “Making vessels has, for me, always been about containing space in order to have a boundary to fill or to leave empty.” The opium poppy, on the other hand, has been seen as a symbol of transcendence, a way to push and break down the boundaries we build. Loren alludes here to the opium poppy’s famous opiate qualities.

It took Loren three attempts to interpret the opium pod before she perfected the right mini vessels for her jewellery piece. Crafted by hand in porcelain, these mini vessels were fired at a high temperature without a glaze. Loren’s pendant, which is manufactured in Argentium 960, a new purer form of tarnish free that is finer than , can be worn open or closed. The idea of keeping something special within the seedpod is important to Loren – it replicates the idea of the “empty space” she creates in her vessels. The jewellery seedpod is attached to a silk cord that features delicate gold tentacles.

Because it comprises two parts, a container-like vessel and a screw top flower-like , Loren’s pendant can be worn fully assembled or with only the flower-like rownc displayed. The wearer also has the further option of removing the flower-like crown and wearing it independently, as the top of a ring. White diamonds have been set into the petal-like edges of the silver ring’s top. Dylan Lewis (b. 1964, Johannesburg) studied Fine Art at Cape Technology (1982) before enrolling at Ruth Prowse School of Art in 1985. He has consistently exhibited locally since 1991, notably at the Everard Read Gallery. In 2002 he commenced a busy international programme of exhibitions that culminated, in 2007, in a sell-out exhibition of his animal at London auction house Christies – all 75 of his artworks on show were sold in 90 minutes.

Dylan Lewis:

Dylan Lewis started his career as a painter. Mentored by Ryno Swart at Cape Town’s Ruth Prowse of Art in the late 1980s, Dylan’s early paintings were densely textured and often elicited comments that he was “sculpting in paint”. Following the untimely death of his father, sculptor Robin Lewis, in 1988, Dylan decided to pursue sculpture as a way of honouring his father’s legacy.

Although world famous for his animal figures, Dylan has in recent years worked exclusively with animal-human figures.

“For every sculpture I do, my starting point is drawing from a living model. At first it’s about detail and proportion, the exact anatomical structure of the skeleton and musculature. But after this, there is a wonderful liberation. I struggle to express my emotions in words, clay is my voice.”

Dylan’s great affinity for nature and wilderness is self-evident in his work and it could be argued that his subjects often function as metaphors for landscape. Cliff overhangs, arid earth forms and large natural outcroppings of rock are always as much his models as any flesh and blood subjects.

Gail and I visited Dylan twice to discuss his jewellery piece, first at his studio and foundry at Koelenhof. On our second trip to Cape Town we visited Dylan at his atelier in Stellenbosch, which includes a gallery of paintings and drawings.

Dylan’s initial idea for this project was a leopard’s head that would sit beautifully as a necklace. He liked the idea of his elongated leopard forming a tattoo of sorts on the wearer’s skin, the leopard’s head is a composite of many pieces of 18 carat white gold plate, which have been attached with small gold wedges between the plates to accentuate the work’s sculptural qualities and evoke its original form as a line. The jewellery piece is pavé set with 1372 round brilliant cut diamonds which create a spectacular sparkling necklace. Senzeni Mathwakazi Marasela (b. 1977, Thokoza/Boksburg) received her BA (Fine Art) from the University of the Witwatersrand in 1998. In 2000 she was invited to participate in the groundbreaking Fresh residency at the South African National Gallery. A recipient of the Thami Mnyele Scholarship and Upstream Grant, both in 2002, her work is held in many prominent collections, notably the Museum of Modern Art – New York. She currently makes and teaches art in Johannesburg.

Senzeni Mthwakazi Marasela:

Senzani Marasela’s skill as an artist lies in her ability to make work that is at once highly autobiographical yet open and revealing of the collective experience of being a black woman in South Africa.

“Insecurity about my identity and that of a girl without a solid mother figure makes up Senzeni Marasela” the artist was quoted in a statement published by her New York gallery, Axis. The artist is aware that her situation is by no means unique. Senzeni’s work around retrieving her mother’s legacy – using photography, performance and linocut print – represents an orchestrated attempt to rectify this situation of loss and absence.

The doll, at once a simple child’s toy and powerful symbol of absence, has played an increasingly important role in Senzeni’s work.

Senzeni’s jewellery piece beautifully combines the story of her mother’s life with her ongoing interest in dolls. A series of five necklace , the jewellery pieces illustrate the various roles of working people like her mother, who came to Johannesburg from the Eastern Cape to find work as a domestic worker. Central to these figures is Theodorah. “I see my work as a step towards liberating Theodora, whose abilities to love and feel have been cast in shadow.” The other four pendants represent familiar archetypes of black womanhood in South Africa.

All five figures have been hand crafted in 18-carat white, rose and yellow gold, and are adorned with enamel and semi-precious stones. The black rubber necklace, its colour symbolic of the tar of a road, includes enhancers spelling out words like “Joburg, Home” and “Theodorah”. Hand fabricated in 18-carat yellow gold, these enhancers allow the wearer to display multiple figures; they are however, removable, making it possible to display a single iconic figure, or offering design flexibility. Karel Nel (b. 1955, Pietermaritzburg) is an artist, curator, writer and Associate Professor at the Wits School of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, where he obtained his BA (Fine Art) in 1977. He furthered his studies at St Martin’s School of Art, London, and was given a Fulbright Berkeley placement to the University of California Berkeley, where he focused on the links between Art and Science. His work is held in many prominent collections, notably the South African National Gallery – Cape Town, the Johannesburg Art Gallery, the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institute, Washington DC and the Metropolitan Museum of Art - New York.

Karel Nel:

A widely traveled artist and highly regarded scholar, Karel Nel is also a notable collector. Drawn to traditional African, Asian and Oceanic art, he has a particular interest in currencies.

Karel is currently artist-in-residence in the COSMOS survey, one of the most ambitious and comprehensive astronomical projects ever undertaken, using both the Hubble and Chandra telescopes in deep space. The invitation to join the project was extended to Karel by astronomer Nick Scoville after he viewed Karel’s 2002 exhibition, Status of Dust in New York.

For his initial proposal, Karel brought two unusual objects with him to the Schwartz workshop: a small white Tridacna shell adze blade he collected in the Micronesian islands above Papua New Guinea and a rare fragment of black stone, a form of volcanic glass, collected on an earlier expedition to Easter Island. At our first meeting Karel asked Gail to cut the dense shell artifact into pieces so that we could see its interior geometries as well as to slice the extraordinarily hard Obsidian. The results of this early process were both surprising and beautiful, and provided Karel with the inspiration for his two .

In the first brooch, Karel used the black obsidian in conjunction with a jagged edge of the Tridacna shell toformthe archaic blade-like form of the brooch. The glistening Obsidian is encased in an edge of white gold, which is transformed into one of his characteristic diagrammatic dotted lines by a series of inset oblong cut diamonds. The back of the piece is characterised by an intricate lattice or tracery of lines in silver, encasing the two materials. The ensuing triangles and polygons allude to an astronomical technique of calculating galactic density.

The second brooch is constructed from two slices of tridacne shell artifact, one flipped and abutted to the other to create a diagonal faultline. The shell is held in place by an 18-carat white gold encasement, strategically punctuated with inverted set black diamonds. In the language of astronomers, dark dots within the web diagrams normally denote the proximity of a galaxy. Small white diamonds have discreetly been mounted on the Tridacna surface on the back of the brooch, as well as on a series of syncopated points on the first brooch, creating hidden features for the wearer’s pleasure. Walter Oltmann (b. 1960, Rustenburg) is an artist and senior lecturer in the Division of Visual Arts and joint head at the Wits School of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand. Winner of the Sasol Wax Art Award in 2007 and Standard Bank Young Artist Award in 2001, he has been exhibiting regularly since the early 1980s. His work is represented in numerous important collections, including the Constitutional Court and BHP-Billiton Collection.

Walter Oltmann:

Walter Oltmann, who grew up in Nongoma in northern KwaZulu-Natal, possesses the singular ability to transform seemingly ordinary and mundane materials into magical sculptural forms. For his contribution to this project, Walter used bird proofing to create a form that, he says,“resembles a caterpillar larva with its threat- ening spines, but it may also remind one of a fur stole in its apparent softness and curved form.”

“In choosing to construct a very open and transparent form for the jewellery project I wanted to reinforce the hard versus soft ambiguity of the work to create a sculpture that would appear light yet also threatening; aggressive and enticing at the same time.”

Walter says he decided to base his idea on abstract geometric patterns found in African rock art designs. These painted patterns are commonly found in rock art sites and are believed to derive from visions seen during trance states. “I felt that the aspect of hallucinatory and spectacular vision in the form of these patterns could be interestingly linked to the visual splendour of jewellery.”

Walter presented us with various designs on paper that relate to the San rock paintings that provided the source of inspiration for his art into jewellery piece.

The diamonds used in Walter’s jewellery pieces were specifically selected from Robert Schwartz’s personal collection of green and yellow special natural fancy colour diamonds. We also jointly devised the matt hand-engraved finish, which gives the rough surface texture – like the surface of a rock. The pendant and are hand fabricated in 18-carat white gold. The pendant, which can also be worn as a brooch, is fitted with a sandy-brown plaited leather cord.