Hon's exhibition, especially jewellery at Elegance; celebrating the Chinese Year of the Dragon

Dragon pendant celebrating the chinese year of the dragon.
Preparatory drawings and one of the products.
manufactured at Elegance.

Elegance Jewellers is the venue of my solo exhibition, situated opposite Europa the Restaurant (follow the provided link for a 360 virtual tour of the site) – located in the in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg - the recent development at Melrose Arch Shopping Precinct. Situated next to the M1 highway (on the left) on route to Pretoria, between Houghton and Sandton (see map provided below), this well designed and utilized urban space, integrates retail, leisure and hospitality, including office, as well as residential space.

This is arguably a 21 century, postmodern workable design solution to urban living space, first anticipated by the modernist architect, Le Corbusier, when he designed Cité radieuse (radiant city) in Marseilles of 1947-52. You’re every need provided on site. The building incorporated shops with an architectural bookshop, sporting, medical and educational facilities, a hotel which is open to the public, and a gastronomic restaurant, Le Ventre de l'Architecte ("The Architect's Belly"). Cited in Wikipedia.

Melrose Arch is the ultimate luxury shopping experience, catering for the glamorously dressed, to shop in style, in comfort and without fear. Here you can look good, feel good and shop for goods, enjoying a truly blue-sky shopping mall experience. 

Elegance Jewellers, in every sense of the word, offers the discerning shopper a value adding experience in luxury goods. Focusing mainly on jewellery, watches and an exclusive section for MontBlanc classics. 

However on the first floor of this triple volume space is an exhibition venue, designed and styled in the same luxurious materials and finishes of the ground floor. The beautifully designed cabinets, complete with LED/LCD lighting, provides for an idyllic space for my latest creative endeavour. The display cabinets providing excellent individual units for the detailed and refined displays of mounted preparatory drawings -  printed in limited editions on acid free paper.

I could not have anticipated a more perfect place, space and display cabinets for my framed and mounted limited editions of ballpoint pen drawings and artist sketchbooks, printed on acid-free paper. 

When I saw the space and met with one of the owners, Oresti, it became clear to me that I could expand my creative ideas to include designer products, inspired by the ceramic installation with projected animation titled, and the ship sails on, celebrating the Chinese Year of the dragon. 

Artist sketch books, printed in limited editions, complete
with Phumani Archival Mill packaging by Sipho.

Being a jewellery retail outlet and the fact that I am now a lecturer in Jewellery Design and Manufacture at FADA (UJ), it became obvious to me that my applied design approach should include a few jewellery pieces – the design process; from reference to concept, right through to the CAD renderings all of which featured on this blog. 

Dragon pendant with ballpoint preparatory drawings.

The collaboration proved to be a huge success as confirmed by the words of Socratis Avgitidis of neofundi - a platform for fundis on what's new - featuring YOU! Follow the provided link to read more and experience this amazing site promoting all things stylish and authentically luxurious. 

Here are a few of the finished jewellery pieces, on display and for sale at my exhibition. They are exhibited in between the other creative statements, in alternate display cabinets, together with the design development renderings, also printed on acid free paper.