Inspired by nature/ culture

Melanie Nützel, necklace wings, steel, artificial materials, pigment

Petra Zimmermann, brooch, polymethylmethacrylate, diamanté, crushed pearls, lacque, gold leaf

At the opening with Petra Zimmermann and Melanie Nützel.

Melanie with her Austrian colleague Erika Leitner.

Our youngest visitor is fascinated, too!

The new works are admired.

Petra Zimmermann and her work.

Art to Wear.

In its 2018 Vienna Festival exhibition, the Slavik Gallery is pleased and proud to be presenting works by the jewellery artists Melanie Nützel and Petra Zimmermann, both winners of the Leipzig Grassi Prize and both artists who work with plastic. However, the working material plastic is astoundingly wide-ranging in its design potential, and Nützel and Zimmermann exploit it in differing but equally marvellous ways of their own.
The German jewellery artist Melanie Nützel draws inspiration from the rich fullness and unparallelled colours of the world of nature. Bringing a second world into play – the complementary world of technology – enables her to create long silver necklaces that are both strong and also enlivened with refreshing highlights in natural colours. The mobile elements in her opulent chains animate the space around them with an eye-catching show of movement and colour in which finely matched red and blue tones flow into one another in an unendingly fascinating interplay between light and shade. Melanie Nützel also draws from nature in the creation of wonderful beetle brooches in which the insects’ intricately worked surfaces are radiant with natural tones of blue and green and their delicate legs and feelers form the frames for these entrancing miniature works of art.

Petra Zimmermann, whose reputation stretches well beyond the borders of Austria, uses a new artistic language to fashion irresistible jewellery out of decorative objets trouvés that she picks up at flea markets. A small purse is turned into a two-finger ring, its closing mechanism modified to form a jewellery component in the new artwork. Applied semi-precious stones give the works a touch of glamour. Through the metamorphosis wrought by the artist, these common-or-garden objects become bearers of narratives, each with a story of its own. Petra Zimmermann’s inspiring hybrid creations defy categorization in the conventional divisions of art jewellery – they are simply extravagant, baroque, luxurious …

We cordially invite you and your friends to join us at what will certainly be a very special exhibition!

With heartfelt greetings
Renate Slavik & Jutta Pietsch