Sophia Vari Magnificent Artist Jewellery
Exhibition dates: December 29, 2016 – February 12, 2017
Galerie Gmurzynska is delighted to present for the first time an extensive overview of Sophia Vari’s sculptural jewellery, presenting more than thirty pieces in St. Moritz.
The uniquely complex works comprise ornamental and abstract jewelry constructions. The objects are being presented in their sculptural character in strict geometrical miniature forms and gorgeous shapes. Vari’s jewellery pieces combine the most refined materials such as gold, silver, wood, ebony, leather and sapphire among others.
This exhibition is within the gallery’s tradition of showing artist jewellery by modern and contemporary masters such as Pablo Picasso, Max Ernst, Hans Arp or Alexander Calder. Vari’s practice brings a new dimension into the art of jewelry making applying ornamental and organic dimensions of utilized materials into relief like works using any possible dimension to create a unique visual and haptic materiality.
Besides their emotional qualities the elusively majestic pieces are delicately archaic living up to their titles like Ulysse, Phenix, Calypso, Zephyr, Minerva or Artemis. Namesakes of Greek and Roman gods and goddesses all of the pieces unfold their sublime and solitary shape with the aesthetic purity that is dialectically prescribed to jewelry and sculpture alike.
This exhibition presents a unifying approach to Vari’s entire oeuvre. The scale of the jewellery redefines the spatial component, being interchangeable between any artistic object of desire no matter if a sculpture or a jewellery piece. As any of the pieces can be worn or being seen as a sculpture itself beautifully floating in space.
Sophia Vari’s works have been exhibited worldwide in major venues most recently at the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Basil & Elise Goulandris Foundation, Andros (2014) as well as at the Pera Museum in Istanbul (2013).
Numerous monographs have been published over the last years including “BIJOUX SCULPTURÉS” in 2010 by Éditions de La Martinière, Paris and “Sophia Vari. Forms and Colors” with an essay by Carter Ratcliff published in 2016 by Glitterati Incorporated, New York.