VALENTINA MANDER
VALENTINA MANDER Valentina Mander is a Spanish-Venezuelan contemporar y jeweller with a background as an architect educated in Caracas, now living in Argentina with an English husband. This exhibition is the culmination of two years of work, experimenting with different materials, including wood, bronze and silver. Valentina uses various techniques, from more traditional wax casting to delft clay and cuttleesh casting – even experimenting with Japanese lacquer. Some of her pieces are for ever yday use, while others are more rebellious. Many tell part of a stor y or are inspired in the exuberant natural surroundings of her upbringing, or objects collected on journeys, often fused into collages or rings of various shapes and sizes.
COLLAGES Because everything is in my head and sometimes the divisions between one collection and another dissolve. They come together here. This collection is the meeting point of my work where ideas harmonise and I develop unique pieces.
LACQUER What began with just learning a new technique developed into a passion, and an urge to express myself with the possibilities allowed by colour. Although these pieces are the ones that take most work and planning, they are the ones I most enjoy making.
FROM LINES TO VOLUME This is a collection inspired as much by my education at home as my professional training. The innuences range from childhood painting lessons and conversations with my parents to my university days and rst years as a practising architect.
FLORA AND FAUNA Here I explore my love of nature which I try to express in my pieces, sometimes with a botanical vision, sometimes with more of a zoological vision.
LIFE IS BETTER BY THE SEA Maybe it is because I am from a Caribbean country, or because my favourite place has always been the beach, but ever since living far from tropical waters I feel driven to work with the shapes formed by coral. It is as if the absence of a diving mask and snorkel make me express the things that I most enjoyed observing underwater.
SAFETY PINS (“IMPERDIBLES” IN SPANISH) Materials: Sterling silver, Freshwater pearls, Cloth nappy that belonged to my son Sebastian “Imperdible”: in Spanish, the word is either an adjective that means “something that cannot be lost”, or a noun that means “a pin with a point that is bent back to the head and is held in a guard when closed”, or a safety pin. When I started thinking about a piece which symbolises the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, the rst image that came to my mind was the nappy of their “disappeared” children that they wear on their heads. This image for me, which was always extremely resonant, acquired an even more powerful meaning when I became a mother, a meaning that I never want to understand entirely and which I hope no one ever has to experience again. From this starting point, the other image which came to me immediately was the safety pin – or “imperdible” in Spanish – because these are our loved ones, that lost cannot be lost. My way of honouring the Mothers and the Grandmothers is showing the images with which I associate that part of Argentina’s history in a piece of jewellery. A necklace that explains what I interpret from an atypical moment of Argentina’s history. The necklace has two parts. On the front, using as an allegory that Argentina so full of tradition and luxury, together with a reinterpreted image of Europe that Argentina has made its own, I use as a starting point a design from a detail from one of the railings from the National Museum of Weapons. From this detail I modelled three pieces in wax that I then cast in silver, which are in the centre and on the sides. Staying with the idea of showing that militarised, ordered, structured, classical and anachronistic Argentina, the centrepiece is joined to an elliptical shape. With pearls laced around the ed edge of the material of a nappy, a pin is attached to the centre. Although it is positioned at a focal point of the necklace, it is partially camouuaged by the whiteness of the pearls and the cotton, only visible for those who want to see. The back of the ellipse is covered with black pearls which bring to the surface the darkness which was behind this luxury and structure. Three strings of pearls, associated with well-being but also tears, hold the pieces of silver together.
VALENTINA MANDER EDUCATION Architecture, Facultad de Arquitectura y Urbanismo, Universidad Central de Venezuela, Caracas-Venezuela. 1998 - 2003. Antonio Pinerua workshop, Venezuela 2000 - 2002. Academia Rio de Oro, Caracas-Venezuela. 2002 - 2004. Familia Salas’s workshop, Argentina 2013 - 2014. Maria Eugenia Ramos’s workshop, Argentina. 2014 - 2016. Yamila Regueira’s workshop, Argentina.2014 - 2016. WORKSHOPS: Paper jewelr y design, Luis Acosta. Bs. As., Argentina. 2015. Folding metal, Camila Antonini, Bs.As, Argentina. 2016. Japanese Lacquer techniques, Francine Schloeth, Bs. As., Argentina. 2016.