Relic by Marytė Dominaitė

Jewellers usually decorate the vulnerable, erogenous parts of the human body: the neck, earlobes, wrists. Fingers. Their work seems to show where the gaze should be directed, to attract it and draw it in. But at the same time, it also opens up and directs them, and, as we know, the gaze is no better than the word at hurting. And it is a rare jeweller who remembers that the vulnerable part of the body is the abdomen as well as the chest – of course, a man is not a dog or a wolf who shows the stronger man his belly, uncovered by anything, to surrender. But still. Sigitas Virpilaitis once remembered this, when he created a wooden, comically bright pink chestplate for the exhibition “Enemies of the Body”.

And now Marytė Dominaitė (Lithuania) is showing the chestplate as a relic from a set of armour from the past that never happened. A chestplate created in the past tense by another artist, an object that has survived as a memory. But a memory that, if we could, we would be happy to replace. We would punch holes like bullets, so that everything that was and that we don’t want to remember, would go through them irreversibly. Be that as it may, on the one hand, you cannot change the past; it is there, like scraps of old newspapers, lining the inside of the chestplate. But from the outside it is not visible, the holes of the imaginary bullets- and wormholes are arranged in fine ornaments, and it may seem that we have succeeded in glossing over all that was. If it were not for this impermanence, if it were not for the eternal hanging in the air, with the inner, hidden side turning treacherously in front of the viewer’s eyes. Nothing will save us from the past or from ourselves, no chestplate.


Daria Edström, 2022, Sweden

Clouds from Daria Edström

Jewellery, no matter how much you try to call it fragile and aquarellic, is usually strong, durable and rarely ephemeral. Metal has to withstand contact…

Carole Deltenre, 2022, France

Fragility by Carole Deltenre

It’s all so fragile, especially when the snow falls incessantly, thickening that fluffy white blanket of down on the stairs, railings, balconies, uncollected leaves, children’s…

Brune Boyer, 2022, France

Rings by Brune Boyer

The further I go, the clearer I see how people want to belong, and there are more and more of them. Those who protect their freedom like a dragoness protects…

Sofia Björkman, 2022, Sweden

Winter landscape by Sofia Björkman

The black winter pattern of bare branches, the tracks of sledges in the snow, the feet of birds tracing dotted trajectories through the untouched snow,…

Lisa Björke, 2022, Sweden

Unexped connections of Lisa Björke

The Swedish artist Lisa Björke creates unexpected connections between everyday objects and elements of traditional craftsmanship – materials and techniques. In METALLOphone, she looks back…

Dovilė Bernadišiūtė, 2022, Lithuania / Sweden

Transit spaces of Dovilė Bernadišiūtė

The Swedish-based Lithuanian jeweller refers to her objects as transit spaces. Thresholds, stops and stations, subways, and airports. These are spaces that don’t seem to…

Peter Bauhuis, 2022, Germany

Pin by Peter Bauhuis

Peter Bauhuis (Germany) talks about being somewhere and marking that presence. About ways to tell yourself and the world – you are here. I am…

Jordi Aparicio, 2022, Spain

Collier by Jordi Aparicio

The black netting, stacked in rectangular “bricks”, looks massive but is actually light. The black collier requires some kind of imaginary body, it seems that…

Andrea Auer, 2022, Austria

Pseudo-pearls of Andrea Auer

Andrea Auer (Austria) exhibits pseudo-pearls at METALLOphone. Large, obviously fake, much more pearl-like images, a derivative of what we imagine a pearl to be –…

Ines Almeida, 2022, Portugal

Place by Ines Almeida

Her places are the ones we remember that leave traces like a paintbrush leaves paint on watercolour paper. Brooches with paper, not enamel, fragile paper…