Cindy Chao, a Taiwanese artist currently featured in the Smithsonian, works wonders with the cold, hard elements of metal and stone, breathing life into them by way of organic inspiration. While Chao claims an interest in architecture (the profession runs in the family), she could clearly call flora her muse as well: her finely-wrought vines and blossoms seem to pulse with the lyricism and vibrancy of living things.
Ornamentation, here, is endlessly fascinating but never gratuitous. The splendor of the design serves the spectacle of the stones and vice versa, the two elements working in symbiosis to form an elegant whole much greater than the sum of their many parts. The pieces are nearly as difficult to capture in photographs as a ballet, for although the forms are fixed, they are not static. Like all great works of sculpture, they have depth; they have movement; they seem to have been imbued with life.
As in Chao’s beloved architecture, beauty, here, lies not just in material or design but in technical achievement. Her larger pieces are articulated to embrace the neck or wrist. A gilded flower stem, when pressed, releases the hidden clasp on a bracelet. Diamond bars dangle from the rafters of pagoda-shaped chandeliers (PHOTO?). 45-carat emeralds emerge from barnacle-like clusters of raw diamonds and pearls. Paradoxes collapse: rigidity drapes; weights float.
With the current trend toward sartorial minimalism, the time could not be more right for jewels that revel in an intricacy of design. Clothe your body simply, like a stem, and let these spectacular accessories blossom at the edges. Or, forego clothing altogether and give these masterpieces the most minimal, most organically beautiful backdrop of all.
Cindy Chao Master Pieces available by commission only; email her studio.
