2018 Catalogue Archive

German artist Melanie Nützel bases her work in the forms and colors of nature. In this necklace, looping rings of stainless steel and resin evoke the shape of a bird’s or insect’s wing as well as the elegant lines of flight – as if a flurry of wing beats have been diagrammed and transformed into a material record that in turn becomes a wearable adornment. When placed around a neck, the necklace comes alive, as the mobile elements shift and rearrange themselves with the wearer’s movements, different shades of red flowing into one another like the graduated hues of a bird’s feathers. Melanie Nützel completed an apprenticeship as a goldsmith and then studied jewelry at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts at Hildesheim in Germany. Her work has been exhibited in museums in Europe and the United States.