TIMELESSLY PRECIOUS
Jacqueline Ryan and David Huycke
Claudia Lehner-Jobst

This year, Galerie Slavik’s annual special exhibition on the occasion of the Vienna Festival is dedicated to two artists with a long-standing relationship with the gallery: the jewellery artist Jacqueline Ryan and the silversmith David Huycke. Gallery-owner Renate Slavik developed a penchant for the artistic developments in Italy and Belgium from the gallery’s early days, offering young artists a platform on which to present their works in Vienna ever since. In the meantime, quite a few of them have made themselves a name on the international stage, started teaching at renowned art schools and have their works exhibited in public and private art collections.

Jacqueline Ryan took her degree at the Royal College of Art in London and then settled in the environs of the Italian jewellery school of Padua, which has gained a reputation for its strengths in formal reduction and the use of precious materials. David Huycke trained and settled in Belgium, an artistic environment known for unconventional experimentation and material understatement. On first sight, the works of these two artists seem to come from very different worlds. But on a closer look they reveal their common ground, namely visual and tactile pleasure derived from two sources: aesthetic power and sound craftsmanship. The artists’ devoted commitment to their preferred materials - gold in her case, silver in his - and their common approach characterised by a tireless effort to fathom the very magic of these materials, yields the most astonishing results. The details and beauty of the individual forms quickly reveal themselves, to the delight of the viewer. The concept of beauty - a long neglected attribute in contemporary art due to its associations with unloved cultural traditions - experiences a revival. There is nothing plain and ordinary in the works of these two artists, but it takes a second look to trace what is surprisingly different; that which drives traditional materials and techniques to amazing heights, spawning unique pieces which, in the words of Jacqueline Ryan, are "timelessly precious".

Jacqueline Ryan’s questing spirit becomes evident in the results of her hikes with sketchbook and telephoto lens through the evergreen landscapes of Umbria, her adopted country. Its wealth of plants and insects, their textures and colours inspire the artist to her brooches, necklaces and rings. The applied arts of ancient cultures such as the Egyptians and Etruscans are another of her passions. In the artistic work of these cultures, which in their quest for eternity bridge the gap between this world and the hereafter, Ryan finds what she is looking for in her search for a universal aesthetic language.

When the London-born artist returns to her workshop from her rambles, she sorts her finds, drawings and pictures, the basis of her playful approach to her work. Three-dimensional paper models are the first step in the artistic process. But these studies, rather than resulting in exact imitations of nature, yield miniature sculptures in which the macro- structures of the natural archetype become visible in plain abstraction. An aspect by which Jacqueline Ryan sets great store is the interaction of her jewellery with its wearer. Many of her works consist of mobile elements that flex, adjust and awaken to life with the movements of the women wearing them.

It takes her up to one month to finish one of her enamelled brooches. The subtlety and refinement of her work is simply fascinating; every tiny facet is elaborated in scrupulously exact detail. A brooch with two chrysanthemum-like flower heads is a telling example of the huge work input Jacqueline Ryan considers a matter of course. The surface of each of the individually mounted petals is minutely worked, giving them an almost mystical lustre. Another brooch resembles a rock from the sea, completely covered with mussels with a blue enamel core scintillating from inside. A garland of golden buds with freshwater pearls becomes a necklace that reflects the lavish opulence of nature.

The love and dedication Jacqueline Ryan has developed for her jewellery art has now been extended to her latest project, a gallery of her own in Todi, where she has created a forum for ceramics, jewellery art, woodcrafts and other branches of applied art by young designers. To some extent this step is a response to the sometimes precarious situation in which jewellery artists find themselves now that the huge increase in the gold price has made life difficult for many of them.

The silver works by David Huycke combine sensual and intellectual aspects, a duality that also becomes evident in formal contrasts such as light and shadow, transparency and opacity. “Useful” vessels such as bowls and vases become sculptures, their elements evolving into free objects. "Kissing bowls" from 2006 is a perfect example. Two blackened silver bowls join to create a new form. David Huycke’s predilection for spherical shapes evolved in the course of his work with the granulation technique. In 2006 his experimental work culminated in a doctorate for his thesis on silver granulation conferred by the venerable Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium. The technique of granulation was invented about 3000 BC, fell into disuse in the early Middle Ages and was reinvented in the middle of the 19th century. Minuscule metal spheres are melted onto a metal ground to create an ornamental surface. David Huycke “liberates” this technique, joining spheres of exactly equal weight merely at the points at which they touch and without a background surface to support them. Thus the granulate, originally an ornament, becomes a structural element. In his two “Pearl Spheres” in black and white Huycke uses thousands of miniature spheres to create a translucent, seemingly weightless, space-enclosing shell, a mere reminiscence of the form of a bowl.

“Fractal chaos” is the source and consequence of these variations on the bowl subject. He exposes the spheres to heat before letting them combine freely into structures reminiscent of the multi-faceted moods of nature, such as crystals, honeycombs, butterfly cocoons or birds’ nests. Besides silver, the artist also works with aluminium and steel, materials that permit him to produce similar light effects, sometimes abstracting the surfaces to increase the contrasts, patinating silver, varnishing steel, forming and polishing aluminium in a way that makes it appear liquid. A quest for perfection, absolute concentration and consequent transcendence of the natural limits of his materials are the defining characteristics of David Huycke's quintessentially scientific approach. “Attaining a poetic dimension” is how the artist formulates his goal.