CARMEN HAUSER
ABOUT:
Making jewellery is a process, making jewellery is about putting together material, form, and technology in order to create boundless diversity. For me, the basic principle of all creation and invention is about assembling parts to create a new whole. The true character of the individual components first becomes visible when they are taken out of their original context. Material, form, and technique that are separated from one another and then combined at random, attain a new substance, a new impression, a new sensibility - their own expression. The associations, the interface, play an important role, where the apparently disconnected merge and create an unusual new whole.
In my view, there are no boundaries between design, fashion, jewellery, art, and object. They form a unity, a pool from which I can create. This crossing of boundaries makes me free, and opens up new doors for me. Seeing things with new eyes, turning them around, turning things on their head, and seeing what happens - questioning the old and familiar. My jewellery comes alive when it’s worn on the body, according to form and movement.
Jewellery’s statement first becomes clear when it’s placed on the body. Its intensive contact with the body is important to me. You have to put pieces on, attach them, wear them, hold them, or lead them to the wrist. This creates a new corporal feeling that can be intensified with contemplatory observation.
Wearing the jewellery then becomes a personal, meaningful experience.
Making jewellery is a reflection of myself, the transcription of my surroundings into material, form, and technology. Jewellery is personal. There is no distinction between my jewellery and me. We belong together. I don’t hide behind words or particular themes. My strength, without a doubt, lies in practical work processes, rather than in dealing with theory. I don’t find it easy to talk about my pieces. Jewellery is my language, my means of expression.
My works don’t have any theoretical basis or concept that I can refer to. The work is much more intuitive, and comes from a gut feeling. My feelings and not my intellect accompany me on the journey towards finishing a piece. The moment of completion shows me whether I have got to the point that I wanted to. In its new unity there’s a feeling of liberation. In the best cases. My goal in my work is to find a clear end. To interpret my work in logical and comprehensible way. I have high expectations that I reach this expectation, this goal. But at some point you reach your own limits. Limits that are hard to overcome. Jewellery needs time, jewellery has to grow.
Reaching these limits results in dissatisfaction that initially seems disheartening. But it’s precisely these moments, which give me a chance to rethink and reflect.