Koen Jacobs Winner of the LAO Special price!
3 months artist in residence at LAO Jewellery School in Florence
For Preziosa Young 2019 edition we received 147 applications from all over the world.
The jury team consists of:
Maria Cristina Bergesio, art critic, curator, teacher.
Tasso Mattar, artistand curator.
Maria Rosa Franzin, artist and teacher.
Robert Mazlo, artist and gallerist (La Joaillerie par Mazlo), Paris.
Irene Belfi, gallerist (Irene Belfi Gallery), Milan.
Selected:
Yajie Hu
Koen Jacobs Winner of the LAO Special price!
Jongseok Lim
EXHIBITIONS
22-25 feb. 2019
Inhorgenta, Munich/DE
6-9 apr. 2019
Oroarezzo, Arezzo/IT
27 jun. - 6 jul. 2019
Galleria Cartavetra, Florence/IT
11-31 jul. 2019
La Joaillerie, Mazlo Gallery, Paris/FR
5 oct. - 3 nov. 2019
Oratorio San Rocco, Padova/IT
15-31 jan. 2020
Irene Belfi Gallery, Milan/IT
Interview with Alice Rendon, 25 oct. 2019
As winner of the LAO special prize, do you want to tell us about your personal experience in the school laboratories?
My 3 months artist in residence at LAO in Florence was a fantastic experience. After being graduated in 2017 and working by myself in a studio, it was great to be in school again and to be able to exchange ideas and knowledge with teachers and students.
What did you learn or improve as a goldsmith during your three-months stay?
With the great help of the teachers I learned the ancient technique chasing and repoussé. They showed me how to use the hammer and chisels and helped me to make a good start. Besides I was very happy to learn how to make my own chisels so I can adjust them to my designs and continue back at home.
How did the city of Florence and in general the Italian culture inspire your work?
Florence is a magical city with an enormous amount of art. I was very much fascinated by the dream like fresco’s I noticed at the ceilings of Uffizi gallery, called Grotesques. I used the residency to dive into this wondrous and mysterious world of the grotesque and I spent hours looking up at the ceilings to study and draw after them.
Do you want to briefly speak about the series you made during the residency?
I discovered that the grotesque is often inspired by Ovid’s Methamorphesis, mythological poems from Roman times. Ovid describes beautify how the world keeps on changing and transforming. I used the poems as an inspiration for the jewellery pieces I’m made during the residency.
How is your work going on? Are you working on something new or are you continuing with the collection you realized while you were in Florence?
The residency was a great opportunity to make a start with a new body of work and I still continue to develop pieces back at home. I used some time to reflect the results and my research, to understand in what direction I want to go. Since I cannot find grotesques in the Netherlands, I ordered some literature to continue my research about the grotesque.
Would you recommend this experience to your colleagues? Do you think it influenced your personal career and your growth as an artist?
I highly recommend everybody to apply for Preziosa Young 2020. With my busy life at home it was a great experience to be able to focus on a new body of work for a period of time. Preziosa Young organised a series of exciting exhibitions to show my work to new audiences. For the winner of the residency a very warm welcome is waiting and you can make use of the advanced technical knowledge and assistance at school. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did!
Interview Koen Jacobs Florence 2019
Interview by Alice Rendon, about my 3 months artist in residence at LAO Jewellery School in Florence,
the LAO Special Price, I won in the Preziosa Young 2019 Design competition.
Video credits: Alessandro Bartoletti.
During the Leonardo Da Vinci's 500th anniversary celebration in Florence,
I asked the students to make a flying machine inspired after the great master.
At the end of the first day the exciting moment arrived to test the flying machines!
JEWELLERY IN MOTION WORKSHOP, 6-7-8 JUNE 2019
During my residency at Le Arti Orafe jewellery school in Florence, I gave a three day workshop to the first- and second year students.
This workshop was about movement, playing and experimenting. During these three days I shared my experimental way of working; a combination of my technical knowledge as a professional gold- and silversmith, in combination with my studies at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam.