FRANCES
WADSWORTH-JONES
A
love of paradox and a fascination with the miniature are the driving
forces behind my work. Through painstaking attention to the smallest
details I attempt to craft visual contradictions – pieces
that live a double life in the eye of the viewer, a fiction of normality
on the casual glance, and a reality that is anything but on closer
inspection. Subverting established visual codes and employing the
strategies of the double take, I aim to create works that exist
at the unstable boundaries where supposed opposites collide –
a margin where the ugly may be beautiful and what seduces can repel,
where the precious and the worthless are interchangeable and the
mundane may be extraordinary.
From conventional jewellery that is entirely constructed out of
tiny insects, to stationery clips that transform into the literal
butterflies of their name and accidental splashes which subtly glitter
with gems, my work explores the imagery of the undesirable and unremarkable
within the context of bodily adornment as the perfect vehicle for
challenging paradox. Combining labour intensive and often traditional
metalworking techniques with luscious, valuable materials, I attempt
to confound the viewer by transforming what at first may seem to
be infringements of their personal body space into the most beautiful
and precious of jewellery on closer inspection, and ostensibly traditional
adornment into a Trojan horse of possibilities.
Though there is a consistent element of transgression in my work
– an oscillation between the adorned and the defiled –
playful provocation is always underwritten by the desire to assert
beauty in the least likely of places and to make statements about
the complex nature of human attraction.
Thus, gentle subversion is used as a way to question life’s
givens, and explore the tension and delight that is to be found
when the familiar becomes deliciously strange.
Look
closer. Little is what it seems…
Workers
At
first glance, my ‘Workers’ pieces appear to be like
much conventional ‘high street’ jewellery. However,
look closer and the carefully constructed illusion of mundane mass
production reveals itself to be intricately hand crafted jewellery,
formed entirely by tiny ants - surreal narrative pieces that, playing
on the insects’ behaviour, seem to construct themselves. Inspired
by ants’ industry and Imbued with the value of time, ‘workers’
mischievously explores the realities of everyday life we often disregard
as unimportant or unpleasant and celebrates the marvels to be found
if we look at anything closely enough.
Heaven sent
Combining
the traditional and labour intensive technique of granulation with
a collage of precious and semi precious stones, I have transformed
one of life’s horrible accidents, the bird dropping, into
desirable and beautiful jewellery. Oscillating between adornment
and defilement, the brooches are serious jokes - playfully provocative
they confront initial perceptions to reveal optimistic outcomes.
This ‘crap jewellery’ subverts both jewellery traditions
and notions of taste to create truly contemporary jewels.
Butterfly Clip
Inspired
by the colloquial name of the everyday binder clip, I have realised
the metaphorical butterfly, creating an edition of stainless steel
wire-formed brooches, that turn stationary into jewellery, the worthless
into the precious and the mundane into the extraordinary –
making the ‘obvious’ obvious.
Biographical
Details