Gela Mederos & Paula Botto Fiora Exchange Tcje#3

Gela Mederos

Venezuela

I’m interested in the role of jewelry in contemporary art. For me is a form of expression for both, the artist who creates the piece and the person who wears it.

Jewelry desigh allows me to develop an art form that can be worn. I like to think of the user as the curator of a traveling exhibition by choosing how to wear it, with which color they match it, for what ocassion they use it, which image do they want to project.

The piece I created for Paula is a brooch made of 925 silver, bronce and enamel. My intention was to syntesize the form of a cicada in a three plane composition: an enameled body, overlaping wings, and a brass ring representing the sun.

Of all the facinating insects I have choosen the cicada for its symbolism associated with rebirth.

Paula Botto Fiora

Argentina

I think of jewelry as an expression of art that suggests some type of communication.

I enjoy the creative and construction processes, working with the pieces as if they were paths, roads that allow me to tell stories. I enjoy the journey that leads to the final result: searching for certain morphology, choosing materials, going back and forth until I finally finish my piece.

In this case, I found the insect theme very interesting and was inspired in memories of my childhood when I used to play with beetles in the fields. Most of this piece was shaped in wax and then cast in nickel silver. The shell was fabricated and soldered to the body. Finally, it was oxidized and covered in water paper.