Funaki guest posts on materiality 1: Enamel

Last winter during the early pandemic days, Funaki's artists were invited to guest post in Instagram, about anything we liked. I prepared three entries, each about a different material I use and love. Here are those posts, each as their own, starting with ENAMEL. 

I thank my location stars for learning this art, as I studied silversmithing here in Melbourne at RMIT University. They, uniquely, have a long history of enamelling with masters such as Helen Aitken-Kuhnen and Debbie Sheezel having taught there prior to my own brilliant teacher, Dr Kirsten Haydon. 

As patience and fine motor skills are needed in the traditional techniques, my beginnings were naturally full of tears–and this was just the teacher ;) However, a 2010 workshop with Prof. Elizabeth Turrell introducing liquid enamel (also referred to as industrial enamel, see below) was a turning point. The application of a fluid mix and drawing onto it allowed a freedom I’d craved, and eventually gave me enough confidence to keep working with the ultimately very satisfying powdered enamel. 

The traditional vitreous (Latin ‘vitreum’ means glass) enamelling dates back to the 13th century BC. Coloured glass powders are carefully applied onto a base, usually metal, and fused by heat into a strong luminous surface. From the 19th century, enamel began to be used industrially: A liquid glass mix is fired in huge kilns to form a durable coating for everyday domestic wares such as our familiar bathtubs and fridge doors. It’s worth noting too that enamel paint (“cold enamel”) and liquid enamel are two very different things. 

The images (IK 2010-19) show you samples of enamel on steel and copper: Shifted (earrings, pendant); liquid (samples, brooch, vessels), and decals (images in enamel). 

For beautiful pieces in different styles, please also see the work of the artists mentioned in this post. 

 

Heavenly Vessels exhibition at AVID Gallery, New Zealand

Inari Kiuru
Blink
2017
mild steel, found object, enamel, pigment, wax, human ashes

Blink is a contemplation of the passing of time and the cyclical nature of all life.

AVID Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand / 08 - 22 April 2017
Raewyn Atkinson, Barry Clarke, Inari Kiuru, Elizabeth McClure, Lindy McSwan, Mark Mitchell, Masahiro Sasaki and Layla Walter

Heavenly Vessels is a collection of vessel objects worked in glass, metals and ceramics. Eight artists from NZ, Australia and Japan have explored a range of ideas in their work for this exhibition: the passing of time, feelings relating to connection with place and the beauty and materiality associated with the medium they are using. www.avidgallery.co.nz

 

 

Night falls over Brunswick, concrete brooches

These three brooches from the Night falls over Brunswick-series were my entry to this year's Mari Funaki Award for Contemporary Jewellery at Gallery Funaki, Melbourne, Australia. From the top:

Suburban moon, close and distant (2016), concrete, mica, pigment, stainless steel pin

A tree and the night's edge (2016), concrete, glass fragments, pigment, paint, stainless steel pin

The Universe sees us asleep (2016), concrete, copper, enamel, glass, paint, stainless steel pin

Blue and orange earrings

Three pairs from the Industrial Lightscapes-series 2015-16, all in steel, paint and gold.

Solstice – of darkness and light, images of work

Here are some images of my work in the exhibition, a group of seven concrete and mixed media objects, titled Dust from a distant sun. Here's how I described it in our show media:

This installation of cast concrete, iron-oxide pigment, clay, coral, leather, wax, aluminium and gold is a meditation on the changing lightscapes throughout our days, and on the heaviness of time irrevocably passing. Vast cloudy afternoons, starry nights, long forgotten mornings; once gone, never to return. The objects–containers, vessels, industrial-organic forms–stand seemingly together, grouped like planets or a constellation, yet each ultimately alone, perhaps carrying the same melancholy that contemplating the enormous universe sometimes evokes. Comforting, the warmth of the sun is always present, as light connecting the works and illuminating the gently rendered surfaces.

photo: ©Aurelia Yeomans

Inari Kiuru: Dust from a distant sun (2015), installation of seven objects made of concrete, clay, leather, foam, wax, crystal, paint, aluminium, gold leaf and iron oxide pigment.

All photos except one by © Inari Kiuru 2015.

Solstice – of darkness and light exhibition

Image: Inari Kiuru (2015) Solstice, giclee print on archival art paper, 380 x 430 mm, edition of 20

Solstice – of darkness and light

Aurelia Yeomans
Inari Kiuru
Naoko Inuzuka

A solstice marks the two brief moments during an astronomical year when day and night meet at their longest and shortest. This changing metaphorical relationship between dreaming and wakefulness, the conscious and the unconscious, and the natural cycles around and within us, is the focus of Solstice –
of darkness and light, an installation of contemporary jewellery, object and image.

fortyfivedownstairs
June 23 - July 4 2015
45 Flinders Lane, Melbourne 3000

Opened by Dr Kirsten Haydon, RMIT University, Melbourne
and Mary-Lou Jelbart, Artistic Director, fortyfivedownstairs


A heartfelt thank you to everyone who saw our show, either in the gallery or through online images. Especially big thanks to our partners, friends, families, teachers and mentors whose support and help was invaluable in realising our first independent exhibition. More images of the work and gallery in the next posts!

Winter neckpiece

Inari Kiuru, Winter (from Winter Thoughts-series) 2010-14

Stainless steel and brass safety pins, sterling silver and 9c gold catch, enamel, enamel paint, varnish.

300 mm x 150mm x 80mm.
Articulated.

Winter is an interpretation of the artist’s native Northern European urban landscape in late December. Tree branches dark and bare; old stone buildings wet with rain, now newly covered with snow. And underneath the cool surface, hundreds of lines follow and cross each other, bound together, layer upon layer, perhaps with a little sting inside. Like people, like cities, like history.
Season upon season ...  - Inari Kiuru

This piece was exhibited last spring (October 2014) as part of M.contemporary gallery's Intimately Connected-exhibition, curated by Michelle Paterson, in Woollahra, Sydney.

"Jewellery art like many other forms of fine art has the intention to express a sophisticated and well-developed concept or narrative through its display and materials. Artists investigate different topics to create individual pieces covering a broad spectrum of ideas and motivations; a piece of contemporary jewellery has the ability to take on the role of adornment with charisma, class and presence." - Gallery exhibition media

The safetypins have been woven together by interlinking (lock & secure). Liquid, industrial white enamel–powdered glass with a clay like agent– has then been painted onto the structure, and the piece has been fired with a big gas & oxygen torch to fuse the enamel onto the steel at approximately 800 degrees Celcius. Enamel paint has been applied at places to add bright highlights. The catch is hand forged from 9 carate gold and sterling silver.

The very happy new owner of the piece, Dr Gene Sherman of the Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation (Dr Sherman also opened the exhibition) with the artist who's gone quiet with joy. I'm wearing a brooch from the same series, fabricated similarly to the neckpiece.

night flight

Lately, I've been collating photos of my work in preparation of a website (knock on wood!!), and found some older pieces which I haven't yet posted here.

The dark piece above was originally a part of a larger work, and a sister to the 'white flight' pendant.

Night flight, 2010, enamel on mild steel, 18ct gold
White flight, 2010, enamel on mild steel, 18ct gold

Work for Bell Weather, our Graduate Exhibition 2010

Artists:

Kim Victoria Wearne
Anita van Doorn
Colly Lu
Bin Dixon-Ward
Inari Kiuru
Soo Jeong Jo
Courtney Jackson
Marcos Guzman
Emi Fukuda
Emily Drummond
Lauren Joffe
Timothy Smullen
Alysha Batliwalla
Romy Mittelman
Sarah Fletcher
Chloë Powell


Finally, the assessment is over, work finished (almost : D, i've just been granted the permission to do some very final welding) , and our graduation exhibition Bell Weather mounted, opened and running successfully.

To me, it's a beautiful, personal show and I appreciate every piece in it: Having travelled with my fellow students for three years, all the work in the exhibition speaks about the experiences, learning, challenges and changes we've all gone through, and most of all, of the passion and creative discoveries of each individual. I hope you get to see it too.

It's at 1000 Pound Bend, 361 Little Lonsdale St (just 30 metres uphill from Elizabeth Street), very central Melbourne until next Friday the 12th, 6 pm. Welcome!

Here are some snapshots, taken in low light, from my work at the show. It's a small selection from this year's projects, and I'm reasonably happy how things turned out. It was great fun and a deep adventure researching and creating the works. I've been saying that it feels as if I've found a path or direction of some sort, creatively, and really look forward seeing where it can take me, and the other way round.

The main materials this year have been steel and enamel, often constructed by welding, to safely take the heat of the kiln. I've also been experimenting with various other materials, such as glass and wax. Without further ado, the titles of the work are:



Table 1 - Silversmithing, from the largest vessel anti-clockwise:

Honey Blossom Sting / spun, etched steel, copper, enamel

Orange container from Let us be lovers – New Jersey industrial landscapes series / mild steel, sugar fired enamel. The series gets its name from the opening line of the old Simon & Garfunkel ballad 'America' which was playing in my head when we took a train from Manhattan to New Jersey last winter. The objects are based on the photos from that journey.

Evening emerges from Day meets night series / mild steel, galvanised steel,
enamel, liquid gold

Fragile nightmares from Day meets night series / mild steel shim, etched and heat coloured

Andalucia brooch / mild steel, glass, 925 silver, stainless steel pin















(More objects from the New Jersey series, photographed by Jeremy Dillon 2010.)


Table 2: Jewellery

Selected pieces from Winter thoughts (between two summers) series
mild steel, enamel, glass, brass, encaustic wax, safety pins, steel coated copper mesh

* * *

At the end of the exhibition images, some of the background / process images too.
Hope to see you at the show!













"To me, creating objects and jewellery feels exactly like playing and discovering new things did as a child. There is a timeless sense of wonder about bringing abstract concepts, ideas and inner worlds into a tangible form, and witnessing how raw ingredients begin to take on a life of their own. I enjoy experimenting with different materials, learning their language as we spend time together, taking a few risks to see what would happen if ...

I am curious, and I definitely want there to be madness in my method.

As an artist my key objective is to never lose my sense of humour – or of the absurd. Examining our immediate environment, the strange depths of the most mundane things and interactions, is my way of looking for light. A way to survive in this world. There are maps in the dirt, stories in wrinkled wrappers, and whole histories discarded on roadsides. Taking time to honour and share these observations through making feels not only like magic, but like a constant renewal of some kind of human hope. I would like my work to convey this."

Inari Kiuru November 2010


And here, some images leading up to the final works:



Partly finished steel objects, and an etched aluminium cone for the other large vessel.



Etching Honey Blossom Sting the Swedish way (ja ja!)– in an IKEA rubbish bin!
The copper sulfate and salt liquid I've been using works especially well if
mixed with hot water.




Vessel with a copper flange which has a steel support with prongs,
and another large spun vessel with shifted enamel, not yet ready.
I had a lot of trouble getting the enamel to stay on the golden coloured
piece, it kept pinging off in a circular pattern, perhaps because I didn't
prepare the steel surface well enough (emerying off spinning ridges).



Sprayed with Klyrfire and water mix, shifted. I thought at the time
that the shifting was maybe too thick at places, perhaps that's why
the enamel surface was rather uneven initially, and kept breaking.





The welded steel top and an aluminium insert. The top
now has texta drawings of cranes and a thick coat of encaustic
wax – will post a photo as soon as I get a chance to take a proper one.



One of the smaller trivets I made for hanging delicate objects in the kiln.



Etched steel plate and shim; a smaller etched steel vessel
and the beginnings of Fragile nightmares.




My bench at uni, leading up to the final weeks : )

And as a post-scriptum, some images of the Winterthoughts pieces taken in a better light, later on.