PREZIOSA YOUNG 2020 Travelling exhibition

The first stage of PREZIOSA YOUNG 2020 exhibition opens on 29th October at the Galleria del Palazzo Enrico Coveri on the Florentine Lungarno, featuring 7 young emerging artists selected by an international jury for their inventive skills in the materials used, in the proposal of innovative concepts and techniques. Hosted in Florence until 8th November, the exhibition will then leave Italy to reach Barcelona, exhibited at Hannah Gallery from 13th January till 3rd February. Then, from 12th to 28th February, PY2020 will be displayed at Atelier Martina Dempf in Berlin, and finally coming back to Italy, hosted at the Oratory of San Rocco in Padua.

The exhibition was supposed to take place in May during the Florence Jewellery Week, cancelled like many other cultural events due to the consequent restrictions caused by Covid-19, and specifically for that reason other dates and locations are being defined.

The competition, organized by LAO, Le Arti Orafe Jewellery School, since 2008 has been promoting the younger generations, encouraging their creativity. The seven artists protagonists of this great traveling exhibition also compete for the assignment of two special prizes offered by the school: a free exhibition space at the Munich Inorghenta2021 fair and a three-month stay in Florence as “artist in residence” offered by LAO. During the residency, the winner of LAO prize undertakes to create a collection that will be presented on the occasion of the PREZIOSA YOUNG exhibition in Florence.

Here are the 7 winners of the PREZIOSA YOUNG contest, selected from 147 applications from all over the world by a jury composed by curators, artists and jewellery critics, such as Giovanni Corvaja, Eugenia Gadaleta, Kazumi Nagano, Cóilín O’Dubhghaill, Renzo Pasquale, Carla Riccoboni, Sam Tho Duong:

 

Elwy Schutten

 

 

Elwy Schutten is a young Dutch jewellery designer, trained in Jewellery design at the Maastricht Academy of Fine Arts & Design. Her pieces have already been shown in several exhibitions and in 2019 she received the prestigious Talente Prize. In her wearable artworks Schutten questions the concept of identity and how it is expressed and interferes with body ornament and clothing.

 

Chia-Hsien Lin

 

 

Chia-Hsien Lin is a young Taiwanese jewellery designer who recently graduated from the Birmingham City University. Her “Smelling Memories” series studies the particular connection that is established between smells and the memories that the former are able to bring to mind.

 

Zihan Yang

 

 

Zihan Yang is a jewellery designer from China. She studied at the Northwestern Polytechnical University in Xi’an, with a Masters in Jewellery and Fine Arts from the Savannah College of Art and Design in the United States. With her intricate silver and gold constructions, Yang invites us to immerse ourself in the darkest depths of the human psyche.

 

Marie Masson

 

 

Marie Masson is a French contemporary jewellery designer and achieved a Master degree from the National Arts and Design School in Limoges. Combining the techniques of leatherworking, jewellery and plumasserie, Masson revisits the codes of ornament, freely melding the different languages ​​of the decorative arts.

 

Jess Tolbert

 

 

Jess Tolbert is an American jewellery designer. She studied History of Art in Florence, then Art and Jewellery at Texas State University, eventually earning a Master’s degree at the University of Illinois.
In her research she recycles industrially made staples to make fine handmade jewellery.

 

Rachael Colley

 

 

Rachael Colley is a young British jewellery designer. She studied 3D Design, Silver and Jewellery, graduating from Loughborough University in the UK, with a Master in Gold, Silver, Metalworking and Jewellery from the Royal College of Art in London. The “Sha-green” series presents food waste in the form of discarded, biodegradable citrus fruit peel, as a vegan alternative to the homonymous shagreen, used in the luxury industry. This scented material she has managed to obtain, comes to life when worn: heated by the body, it emits a subtle fruity fragrance.

 

Dongyi Wu

 

 

Dongyi Wu is a Chinese jewellery designer, trained at the Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology and at the Rochester Institute of Technology. She likes to describe herself as a storyteller and express her experiences through large body adornments, created by using different types of new and alternative materials like rubber, gloves and aluminium cans.