DONNA BRENNAN
Biography
Donna Brennan’s work explores the traditional language of jewellery. Utilising standard trade findings which are core components deployed in ‘fine’ jewellery (such as claw settings, chain and stone beads),
her aim is to subvert or cause a displacement of the clichéd visual language of traditional jewellery by placing the findings and stones
in a new and unconventional context.
Precious and semi-precious stones are croched and stitched together to form a new man-made stone which do not conform to the normal economy of scale. Ring shanks entwine around the finger and then extend onwards to encapsulate the clusters of stones. In some instances, claw settings are ‘robbed’ of their traditional stone clasping function, and in a role reversal, are presented merely as decorative clusters perched on top of the stone.
The hegemony of traditional jewellery comes under scrutiny thereby questioning the authority of this language. If traditional jewellery is a meta-narrative of fixed and stable values, then the work aims to challenge this meta-narrative and any notion of a coherent representation, deconstructing all authoritive or supposedly immutable standards of aesthetic judgement.