AUTOR is a story imagined and built by passionate people, who inspire through creativity, vision and courage. We want you to discover one of the #peopleofAUTOR and let them enchant you with their story and their creations. Meet them at AUTOR.
Julia Trandafir is a young contemporary jewellery designer currently based in Transylvania. She finished her Jewellery and Silversmithing Bachelor of Arts at the The Sir John Cass School of Art, Architecture and Design, in London. She recently came back to Romania in order to launch her new jewellery brand, called Ikona Jewellery Studio. The studio seeks to blend art with function, creating one of a kind pieces of adornments.
The participation in AUTOR implies a rigorous selection process, a collection dedicated to the event and a lot of work. What can you tell us about the collection with which you participate in the AUTOR fair on?
This collection is a precious metal preservation and exploration of forest relics, trying to display the beauty of natural details and making the ephemeral durable. The process started when I first truly looked at a couple of antlers. I found beauty in the organic texture and decided to explore further. Another aspect which I found especially intriguing is the stag’s peculiarity of shedding and growing its antlers back every year. To start again each year, to reinvent itself every spring is such a powerful quality which we can relate to and envy as human beings. In my finished works I hope to display the organic, undulating movement of the bone growths and tell the history of their transformation: from skull adornments, to disposed weapons on the forest ground, to trophies on my grandparent’s walls and finally, jewellery pieces.
In order to make these pieces, the initial material has to metamorphose as well, through the techniques of mould making and casting: from bone, to wax to precious silver. This approach allows me to make wax models that can be manipulated and reworked to create one of a kind pieces and new designs. The variety of finishing touches are meant to celebrate different aesthetics and highlight the stag’s power of reinventing itself.
What does it mean for you to be present at AUTOR?
Showcasing my work at AUTOR represents my official debut in the contemporary jewellery world, especially in Romania. Furthermore, it is a great opportunity to receive feedback from the public, the jury, the designers, many of whom I already admire and of course a great way to promote my work to an international audience.
The concept of this year’s fair is “Beauty never sleeps“. What does beauty mean to you and how did this artistic creation influence your concept?
I can find beauty almost everywhere and I think that beauty is a universal need of human beings. Beauty gives us the opportunity to take a break from our everyday lives, it connects us with nature and the divine, reminding us that we are not guided solely by physical and material needs, that we are spiritual beings. What I find especially beautiful are contrasts. In my work I enjoy to juxtapose different aesthetics, classic beauty ideals with elements of randomness or even, what might be considered ugly or kitsch by some.
Nowadays, attention spans are getting shorter day by day. How does contemporary jewelry reflect today’s society?
Contemporary jewellery reflects today’s world through the emotions and experiences of the artists. I think one can’t really separate the jewelry from the artist and the world he’s living in. Some jewelry pieces speak about present aspects of the world, good or bad, some project the future and some speak about eternal aspects, or even try to skip over the current affairs. Regardless, all contemporary jewelry pieces represent the artist’s response to the current society.
One of the most important qualities of contemporary jewelry is probably its capacity of being a form of therapy, an antidote for stress, superficiality or indifference. Through its creativity and complexity, it has the power to demand consideration and transport the viewer for a brief moment, from the utilitarian and accelerated world, into a sphere of contemplation.
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Description of the collection:
This collection is a precious metal preservation of forest relics, trying to display natural beauty and making the ephemeral durable. The pieces speak about adornment, transformation and exploration. The process started when I first truly looked at a couple of antlers, at my grandparent’s home. I found beauty in the organic texture and decided to explore further, through the techniques of mould making and casting. In my finished works I hope to display the organic, undulating movement of the bone growths and tell the history of their transformation: from skull adornments, to disposed weapons on the forest ground, to trophies on my grandparent’s walls and finally, jewellery pieces. In order to accomplish these pieces, the initial material has to metamorphose as well: from bone, to wax to precious silver. Through the moulding process, I am able to make wax models that can be manipulated and reworked to create one of a kind pieces and new designs. The collection’s title is a reference to the deer’s peculiarity of shedding and growing its antlers back every year.
