Jessica Turrell

Bio

Jessica trained in jewelry and enamel at the Central School of Art, London. Upon graduation she established a studio in Bristol, England and she currently divides her time between studio practice and teaching. Her work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally.

Having been trained in traditional enamel techniques Jessica was inspired by the unconventional approaches to enamel encountered during her involvement in a large public art project in the late 1990s. She has latterly undertaken a sustained period of research into mark making in enamel using non-traditional techniques. This, combined with investigations into printmaking techniques for enamel, formed the focus of her postgraduate study at UWE, Bristol, UK. In 2007 Jessica was awarded a three year AHRC Fellowship in Creative and Performing Arts based at the University of the West of England, Bristol. The focus of the fellowship, entitled ‘Innovation in Vitreous Enamel Surfaces in Jewellery’, is the potential of new and experimental techniques and processes in relation to the constraints and requirements of jewelry production.

Selected recent exhibitions

2016 Heat Exchange 2, Bayerischer Kunstgewerbeverein, Munich; CITY - 25^th Legnica International Jewellery Competition, Poland 2015 hpean Prize for Applied Arts Exhibition, Mons, Belgium; Premio Fondazione Cominelli exhibition, Italy; Silence Please, Galerie Noel Guyomarc'h, Montreal, Canada; Schmuck 2015, Munich 2014 Collect 14, Saatchi Gallery London 2013 Play of Form and Colour, New Directions in Enamelled Jewellery TheDeutsches Goldschmiedehaus, Hanau, Germany; Jessica Turrell and Chrisja Tritschler, Schmuckgalerie tal20, Munich 2012 Beneath the Skin, Galerie Marzee, The Netherlands; Enamel – A Renaissance, Galerie Handwerk, Munich 2011 Surface and Substance (curator and author of catalogue essay).

Publications

Authored journal article Surface and Substance – a call for the fusion of skill and ideas in contemporary enamel jewellery, Craft Research, Intellect, UK, 2010; The Enamel Project – Jessica Turrell, author Ian Wilson, Art Aurea Magazine, 2010

Statement

My aim is to create jewellery that rewards close attention with an intricate and detailed surface. I work with vitreous enamel on etched metal surfaces, creating surface textures through repetitive mark-making processes. I respond to and test the subtle nuances that come with the micro-decisions I make as I work. The miniaturized format of the jewellery form allows me to explore my ideas on an intimate scale and Deliberately rejecting enamel’s more conventional characteristics of shine and colour in favour of a more nuanced and ambiguous surface, I have developed unique ways of working with it that give the jewellery a particular tactile delicacy that positively encourages touch.