Gillian Ryan

Gillian looks at and takes inspiration from her surroundings and is fascinated by organic shapes and textures.
The Ayrshire coastline, where she lives and works, features heavily in her designs. As well as the beautiful scenery, with the abundance of shapes of waves and foliage, the area is steeped in history and heritage. Coming from and returning to live by the coast has allowed her work to reflect this through design, giving her jewellery a biomorphic feel and flow.
There are three main types of work produced. The first is within the world of fold forming, or forging, where each piece is individually made by hand and hammer, resulting in unique organic shapes. Each piece becomes an individual piece of wearable mini-sculpture.
In the second area, she corrugates thin metal pieces and manipulates them by hand into shapes for use as jewellery. The resulting rigid structures are again akin to shapes and textures found in nature, for example the bark of a tree or the structure of a shell.
Lastly, the third area involves using cast pieces as components, where moulds have been made from shells collected on the local beach and with the lost wax method then used to produce the metal masters for casting. These shells are part of the local natural history and can be cherished as both a memento and a memory.