In this interview, the artist behind the Intimate Touch collection invites us into a world where objects do not decorate — they diagnose. We talk about a lost jade bracelet, fingers reshaped by digital gestures, and jewelry as a form of silent resistance. It’s a conversation about tactile memory, research as ritual, and the power of a form that touches before it is seen.
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What is your first memory with jewelry?
My earliest memory is tactile, not visual. At five, I traced the grooves of my grandmother’s jade bracelet while she napped. It was cool, heavy, and etched with tiny dragons that bit their own tails—a symbol of cyclical time, she’d say. When she passed, the bracelet vanished, likely sold during a family crisis. But the absence of that object haunted me more than its presence. It taught me early that jewelry isn’t just adornment; it’s a vessel for stories, heirlooms of loss and resilience. That duality—beauty bound to burden—still pulses through my work.
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Your latest collection, Intimate Touch, explores the impact of technology on the body. What sparked this fascination with the way smart devices shape our physical experience?
Obsession breeds in mundane rituals. During lockdowns, I noticed my fingers twitching even without a phone—phantom vibrations, a muscle memory of scrolling. Our hands have become prosthetic extensions of screens, reshaped by repetitive gestures: thumbs hooked, wrists bent like question marks. I began sketching my own hands, mapping calluses and creases caused by devices. These weren’t flaws but archaeological layers—evidence of how technology colonizes flesh. Intimate Touchisn’t anti-tech; it’s a monument to our negotiated coexistence. Each piece freezes a moment where the body surrenders to, or resists, digital occupation.
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You describe your pieces as “tokens of occupation and surveillance” rather than functional objects. How do you see jewellery evolving in the digital age—should it still serve the estetics, the adorning function, or can it exist purely as a statement?
Jewellery has always been political. A crown isn’t just gold—it’s authority. A wedding ring isn’t just metal—it’s a contract. In the digital age, adornment becomes data. Think of smartwatches tracking pulses, or AR filters sculpting virtual faces. My work asks: Can jewelry reclaim agency? The pieces in Intimate Touch are cages and collaborators. They “adorn” by immobilizing fingers, mimicking how apps fragment our attention. Aesthetics here aren’t decorative but diagnostic. Yes, jewelry can be a statement—but a statement is never neutral. It’s a mirror held to power. Our screen-addicted hands are bound by movements and thoughts.
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In your creative philosophy, you mention seeking rather than finding. How does this idea influence the way you approach making jewellery?
I think of my process like gardening—you prepare the soil, plant seeds, but you don’t control the weather. For me, seeking is about interrogating the familiar. When I started the Holding Gesture series, I mailed wax models to my collaborator in the UK. The wax softened in transit, warped by summer heat, and arrived with dents I never planned. These “flaws” become the piece’s language. Control is an illusion. To me, seeking means staying open to accidents. I embrace accidents, like the way a smartphone’s glare warps shadows on skin, take the process as a dialogue between intention and erosion, to “find” would mean closure. It allows my work to stay unresolved, like a wound that refuses to scar. I don’t sketch final designs upfront, I start with a question, then let the material and context guide me. It’s messy, but that’s where the truth lives.
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The collection is deeply personal yet resonates universally, especially in today’s screen-dominated culture. How do you hope wearers interact with your pieces? Do you see them as confrontational or reflective objects?
They’re quiet provocateurs. When someone wears Intimate Touch, the metal “claws” clamp their knuckles—a discomfort echoing how devices grip our psyches. But it’s not didactic. The pieces ask: What does your body remember? I want wearers to oscillate between estrangement and recognition. Confrontation without reflection is noise. These objects are meant to linger, like the afterimage of a screen. You might hate how they feel, but that friction is the point. It’s not about answers; it’s about noticing the questions etched into your skin.
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You balance both research and design in your practice. How does your research process shape the physical jewellery pieces you create?
Research is my anchor. My studio is a lab of contradictions. I dissect historical armor—how it protects yet restricts—then juxtapose it with motion-capture data of TikTok dancers. Research is my compass, but intuition is the map. For Holding Gesture, I studied Victorian mourning jewelry, where hair of the deceased was woven into lockets. That literal entanglement of body and object inspired me to cast metal in shapes that mimic screen-time-induced cramps. Each piece is a hybrid: part archive, part prophecy.
For Intimate Touch, I spent weeks studying factory workers’ hand injuries during the Industrial Revolution—how machinery literally reshaped their bodies. That led me to compare it with today’s “digital injuries,” like thumb arthritis from scrolling. One historical photo showed a blacksmith’s palm calloused into ridges, almost like topographic maps. I replicated that texture in wax, then cast it into a silver ring that mimics smartphone-induced finger strain. The ring isn’t just metal; it’s a bridge between past and present labor. But research isn’t just books—it’s also staring at my own hands after eight hours of Zoom calls, noticing how the pinky finger indents from gripping the phone. That’s how a simple observation becomes a silver hand object in the final piece. Every curve I carve is a footnote to someone’s lived experience.
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Aside from your own artistic practice, you’ve co-founded Jinaxy, a jewellery store in China. How does this business venture align with your creative vision, and what impact do you hope to have on the jewellery landscape in China?
Jinaxy is an idea that I came up with during a discussion with my jewelry designer friend Ruizhen Quan. It is an online platform for the public to learn about outstanding contemporary jewelry works. We carefully select works that challenge dualism – works that ask, what is precious? I once accepted a charity commission from the community, which was a ring with a QR code embedded on it, which can link to the story behind the wearer. I hope that Jinaxy will become a public platform where craftsmanship will not stay in nostalgia, but will continue to develop through discussion.
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Looking ahead, what themes or ideas are you excited to explore next in your work? Are there new materials or techniques you are keen to experiment with?
I want to explore more forms of the body in motion, and recently I’ve been experimenting with 3D printing bioplastics and combining them with found biowaste to create new works. I’m also working with AI artists to create “untouchable” gestures. But material innovation is an auxiliary tool, the core will remain: the way we mourn, love, and about resist in a world where the body is half physical and half pixelated.
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Where do you see yourself in two years?
In two years, I hope to stand at a crossroads where I can stand at a farther distance to examine the creation. I hope to retain the unfamiliarity with the work and to overturn the dialogue in the work from a more intense perspective. Imagine taking a soldering torch to a completed silver claw, melting it into something raw again. That’s the energy I crave: keeping my relationship with my work unfamiliar, almost adversarial, so it never settles into dogma.
