/ Jewelry talks to you

“Jewelry talks to you.”

Each piece has its own story to tell. And while each story originates with me, if you wear it on your body, the jewelry becomes your own voice – and will become your story.

I disassembled the lenses and took out all the glass, extracting each like a natural pearl. All lenses that I use are old, some of them are really old. So it is almost impossible to get the same lenses and make a duplicate.

Light and reflection are fascinating and create intense emotion in me. They never stop – and are very difficult to capture in the real world. I often feel that they are truly living things.

In my studio, I spend a lot of time with old camera lenses. The experience has been like time travel, and during this time I found direction for new creations.

In 2019, I have a solo exhibition “VOICES” at ALIEN Art Centre in Kaohsiung. It was the biggest and the most important exhibition in my career. I was a bit empty, and it was not easy to find a motivation to create something new after that.

And then the world is shrouded by the COVID-19, world was confused and everything is suspended. It was and still is now hard for all of us.

What I can do? How can I feel happy again?

My answer was very simple. What I can do is continue my creation and making jewelry.
I know that jewelry has power and I believe that it could change the world in a good way. Showpieces to people and if they feel good and change their minds with my piece, I will be happy again.

So I started to find new ways and I created the HOLON series.

The interesting point of hand making is that it happens always the error. The error is frustrating. You have to go back and try it again but it doesn’t work. Try again with other way and doesn’t work... So I continue until I can find the correct way. It is sometimes very long process.

I feel sometimes my hand have a potential to create amazing thing more than my brain therefore I said hand is an independent creature!

I have to be very persevering to realise the idea in my brain. But I also enjoy to have an error in my process because in some point the error brings me to the new world with unexpected things.


－Jiro Kamata, ALIEN Art Centre “Hope”, 2021