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Artist's Statement

Francesca is an Italian contemporary jewellery artist based in Berlin, Germany.

She obtained her BFA at the Alchimia School of Contemporary Jewellery, Italy and then went on to obtain her MFA at the SUNY, New Paltz, New York, USA. After finishing her studies, she did a few internships around the USA: first at Heidi Lowe Gallery in DE and then in San Diego CA where she was an assistant for Anne Wolf. She moved then to England for 2 years to do a residency program offered by the Birmingham School of Jewellery, UK.

About the Work

Her work reflects the concept of decay, used and lost. She likes to make jewellery objects that work as relics, a small-scale armour and at the same time as talismans, or amulets. She likes to investigate the moment when an adornment becomes something more than mere ornamentation. Her goal is to create a sense of “worn”, often translated by some "dis-functionalities" of the pieces such as holes or rough textures. Each piece invites the viewer to get closer, to see the imperfection. Imperfections are a reminder of transiency, time passing; they draw us with curiosity and allow us to create our own stories lost in time    

Francesca uses mostly silver in her work as well as, mokume-gane and shibuichi  a Japanese alloy made of silver and copper.  Mokume -Gane is an ancient Japanese technique used in the 17th century to adorn swords. It consists of a block of metal made from many layers of different metals, stacked on top of each other to form a sandwich, called a billet. The billet is fused with a torch or in a kiln and pressed to obtain a sheet.  By hammering, stamping and carving on the surface of the sheet, the layers of metal are revealed, resulting in the metal surface being covered with many different patterns and textures.