Dorothea Brill

General thoughts about jewelry:

Understanding the making of jewelry as a playground

Dealing with things in a playful manner has become the main thread of my work.
To me, playful means staying on the risky path of remaining between seriousness and lightness, and also not allowing the work to become too serious nor too trivial.
The nature of playfulness is very much related to the artistic process, and that itself is again related to experimentation. Next to all calculations and strategies in the experiment I have learned to appreciate the coincidence as an important player: Expecting the unexpected and seeing possibility of discovering new things.
In this way the process of working and designing is placed close to another and are unmutually conditional, it is not even possible to seperate them.
"play-things" (toys):
As in case of the game where everything can become a toy; so too for jewelry where everything - also unusual things - can become an adorning element.
It does not play a role whether gold or silver or materials such as iron, rubber, glass or aluminum are going to make the jewelry "shiny".
The most important thing is its liveliness.
Lively through its openess, through its possibility to carry fantasy and to evoke associations - just freely.
In this way works are developed which tempt the wearer away from conventional thinking and welcome them into another world of new ideas.

Born 1968 in Freiburg i. Breisgau
Graduation
1989-91 Berufskolleg für Formgebung, Schmuck und Gerät, Schwäbisch Gmünd
1991-94 work in different studios, Munich
1994-99 studies at University of Applied Sciences Pforzheim, jewellery and hollowware design
1997 Scholarship, New York City
1998 exchange, Rhode Island School of Design Providence, USA
1999 Diploma
since 1999 freelanced artist
1999-2004 assistant at HfG Pforzheim, Department of Art and Design-Sciences
2001 foundation of JUNI with 5 other jewellery designers www.junijewels.de
2002 national and international JUNI-exhibitions and solo exhibitions
since 2005 in Berlin

"It is play that makes a human being whole", Schiller.