2021 Catalogue Archive

In his alluring Eyes and Skin necklace, Dutch artist Herman Hermsen has printed found illustrations of eyes and close-up images of skins from different animals on aluminum squares. Forming an elegant collar, each metal square is double-sided, which makes this a reversible adornment. On one side—the eye side—the viewer finds eyes from different reptiles, cats, and even from a human staring back. On the other side, the viewer will encounter squares with a giraffe’s coat or a snake’s skin. Hermsen “constantly explores and reinterprets what jewelry and objects mean, searching for a playful pictorial language with which to express himself.” Studying at the ArtEZ Academy of Art and Design in Arnhem, Hermsen graduated in 1979. From 1985 to 1990, he taught product design at the Utrecht School of the Arts (HKU), before returning to the Arnhem Academy to teach product design. From 1992 until 2019, he was professor of product and jewelry design at the University of Applied Sciences in Düsseldorf. His work is included in many public collections, including the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, the Museum of Arts and Crafts in Kyoto, the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York City, and the Dallas Museum of Art.