SANDRA BUSHBY - SET IN THREAD

KIM MEEK - ORNAMENTALIASANDRA BUSHBY - SET IN THREAD

KIM MEEK - ORNAMENTALIASANDRA BUSHBY'S Set in Thread is a startling array of twentieth century Tiffany diamonds fantastically rendered in silk stitches. Her glass encased handmade jewels; luxurious necklaces and earrings, square, round and pear-shaped diamonds, take us on a journey into a rarefied aesthetic world. These sets of coloured diamonds were originally marketed by Tiffany as the former possessions of Marie-Antoinette. Bushby does not emulate diamonds so much as the mythology they carry. By reconstructing the language of cut, clarity and colour, she encourages us to ponder the commerce sustained by these stones.

KIM MEEK is also fascinated by ornamental vocabulary. His latest series of archival digital prints, Ornamentalia Melancholia was inspired by a survey of the decorative grilles covering external fresh-air circulation ducts on the Victorian-era asylum, Carrington. Meek located 37 grille designs on this building. In the works these are presented within knot-like mandelas, layed out in the manner of enormous book plates. Set within is Tom Phillips' canonical text, 'Summary Treatise on the Nature of Ornament', presented to the Royal Academy in 2003. This mantra-like provocation €” over 157 meditations, recounting the implications and accomplishments of ornament €” is supporting evidence threaded through galleys of diverse pictorial and decorative elements, evocative of nineteenth-century encyclopedias of ornament.

Exhibition runs until Saturday 23 December at 4pm.

Image: Sandra Bushby, Silk Empress Eugenie white diamond drop earrings & green diamond drop earring (1850-1900), 2006