Quoil | Julie Vine

Julie Vine

Apprenticed and working with esteemed jewellers Jens Hansen and Gavin Hitchings from 1979-1984, Julie Vine currently works from her Nelson studio handcrafting quirky jewellery lockets and charms including robots, skulls, oxygen bottles and alien creatures.

Many of her works have a gothic sensibility and feature moving parts; doors open, heads rotate and arms and legs swivel. Vine utilises a wide range of materials from silver, gold, bronze, semi-precious gems and recycled ivory and ebony from piano keys. 'These works are a continuation of a personal fascination with colour, texture and movement in objects and a love of containers, with their mystery and promise of a chance surprise, maybe influenced by childhood foraging in rusty tobacco tins in farm sheds. As a maker of objects I seek to realise an idea, using any durable material that fits the task, although semi-precious metals often predominate. Learning to work with a wide "palette" of materials is a necessary although research intensive part of the making of these pieces.'

Each minute and exquisitely crafted object made by Julie Vine's dexterous hands heaves with unique character and personality. To experience her work for the first time is to enter a parallel world where the strange and familiar dance to an ancient folk song. To wear this jewellery is a whole other experience. Interactive is not quite the word for tiny space crafts with resident aliens, rings that open up to family portraits or kaleidoscopic microcosms that change with the weather.